A girl who was featured in hundreds of images in a child sex abuse video has been found after years of searching.
The now adult victim was finally identified and contacted after online safety experts saw a picture of her school uniform.
Investigators from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) first identified the girl in child sexual abuse material in 2020, but were unable to locate her at the time.
The analyst who later identified the girl said it was a “big breakthrough” because she found her, which is rare for researchers in the field.
The child, who was about 13 years old, had been using video calls and text chats to create content about herself – some of which belonged in the most extreme category
It turned out they weren’t inherently illegal, so that usually meant analysts would move on to the next case.
But Mabel immediately recognised the schoolgirl and started looking for clues to her identity.
“I started going through all the images. And in this folder there were pictures of her in her school uniform, in the school gym, in the canteen, in her sports uniform, in her jacket,” said Mabel.
She zoomed in on the school jacket and began trying to identify the school by the badge.
When she succeeded, she contacted police, who contacted the school.
Some of the files also contained the girl’s name, which helped narrow the search even further.
Police were able to find the victim – now a young woman – who never reported the grooming or abuse.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) said on Tuesday that nearly 37,000 child sexual abuse offences were reported to police in the UK last year.
The charity is calling on technology companies to strengthen security measures that block the capture and distribution of images of nudity on children’s devices.