More than 60 sex crimes recorded against children in Wiltshire were committed online last year.

The NSPCC has warned that tech companies are enabling the crimes by failing to design their sites with children's safety in mind.

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the charity revealed that 63 grooming and online offences involving a victim under-18 were recorded by Wiltshire Police in 2019-20.

However, this was a 17% decrease from the previous year, yet meant 6% of all sex crimes recorded against children by the force were online.

In 2018-19, 7% of child sex crimes in Wiltshire had an online element.

Det Supt Ben Mant, Head of Wiltshire Police’s public protection department, told the Gazette and Herald that the force takes online abuse "seriously."

He added: “In this ever evolving world where criminals are using the internet more and more to carry out sexual abuse and exploitation, we ask every parent, carer and even the children themselves to report any type of abuse. They can do this either to the police or any of our partners and charities like the NSPCC and Childline.

“We take online abuse seriously and our Digital Investigations and Intelligence Unit (DIIU) allows us to investigate cyber-crimes like these as well as carry out prevention work with the public, offering the latest advice when it comes to online security.”

The recorded crime figures include sexual assault and activity, gross indecency with, and grooming of children, as well as crimes of abuse of children through prostitution and pornography.

Rape of children aged under 16 is also included.

The number of online sex crimes against children across England and Wales topped 10,000 in 2019-20 - the 10,058 recorded was a 17% rise on the previous year.

Andy Burrows, head of child safety online policy at the NSPCC, said: “Offenders are using the web to commit child sex offences in ever-growing numbers and young people are at even greater risk of grooming and abuse due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

“But these crimes have been enabled by tech companies that continue to fail to design their sites with children’s safety in mind.

“The Government have a pivotal opportunity to change this in the coming weeks in their response to the Online Harms White Paper.

"By setting out bold and ambitious legislation that puts a duty of care on tech companies to protect children online, and giving a regulator the power to enforce this with financial and criminal sanctions, they can set a global precedent for preventing avoidable harm.”

The Government said it had invested heavily in law enforcement, including hosting a Hidden Harms Summit, convening a global conference to drive the response to online child sex crimes and giving £1.6 million towards the NSPCC's helpline.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Tackling online child abuse is a priority and we are working at pace to develop legislation to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online.

"This will introduce a duty of care on companies, who will need to put in place systems to deal with harmful content and take robust action, and will be overseen by an independent regulator."