Police target child sex abuse

HUNDREDS of police officers have been trained to help prevent child sexual abuse in communities across the country.

Stop it Now! Scotland, the national programme for the prevention of child sexual abuse, has trained more than 600 officers from the eight Scottish forces.

Called The Upstream Project, officers act as “prevention agents”, providing families with information about how they can help protect the children in their lives from harm.

William Manson, Stop it Now! Scotland project manager, said: “We need to get real about child sexual abuse and dispel some of the myths that are out there.

“We know that most abuse is committed by people who the children know in the home, not by strangers. So much of this goes unreported and that’s why adults need to know the signs to look out for and what to do about it. We cannot leave the child to be the one to take action.”