Essex Police have said that from April to October 2017, there have have been 27 cases of sexual communication with children recorded in the county.

A statement from the NSPCC said following a change in law on protection of children, there have been 1,300 recorded incidents in its first six months after the new law came in.

DCI Jon Burgess of Essex Police' crime and public protection demand, said: “Protecting children is a top priority for Essex Police and those who choose to abuse them will be caught and will be dealt with.

“We will always use the tools available to us to keep children safe and any legislation which helps to identify and arrest offenders is welcome.

“This change in the law allows us to get to offenders before any physical contact with a child is made.

“We are always looking for ways we can improve our ability to identify abusers trying to groom children online and are currently working with software developers to help improve the algorithms they use to allow the early detection of offenders.

“We have specialist teams working in this area, dedicated to keeping our county’s children safe, including the Child Abuse Investigation Team (CAIT), the Operation Gloucester team, which is a specialist team of extra officers who use an intelligence-led approach to target those involved in child abuse imagery offences, and the Police Online Investigation Team.”

The NSPCC say that before the new legislation came into place, police were unable to intervene with grooming cases until the offender had met the victim in person.

The statement added: "Girls aged 12-15 were the most likely to be targeted by predators. But some children were as young as 7."

The NSPCC has called for the government to work with social media companies to set up anti-grooming alerts for young people and site moderators in order to quickly identify a case of grooming sooner.

Tony Stower, head of child safety online, said: "Despite the staggering number of grooming offences in just six months, Government and social networks are not properly working together and using all the tools available to stop this crime from happening.

“Government’s Internet Safety Strategy must require social networks to build in technology to keep their young users safe, rather than relying on police to step in once harm has already been done.

“If Government makes a code for social networks that is entirely optional and includes no requirement for platforms to tackle grooming, this is a massive missed opportunity and children will continue to be put at risk."