BRITAIN is becoming a hotbed for female sex abusers, with experts claiming official figures are “just the tip of a very large iceberg”;.
A Sun probe today reveals 20 per cent of anonymous calls to one charity’s helpline over the past eight years were from callers who had been sexually abused by a female in their childhood.
And the number of reported cases of female-perpetrated child sexual abuse in England and Wales rose by 84 per cent in the four years to 2019.
Just last week former , 29, appeared at Salisbury Magistrates’ Court charged with a string of sex offences against three children – two girls aged 14 and 15, and a 16-year-old boy.
She is also accused of making an indecent image of a child and having sexual communications with a girl aged between 13 to 15 – with all the offences allegedly taking place over a three-year period while James was teaching PE at Hardenhuish School in Chippenham and Bitterne Park School in .
Thousands of Brits have been sexually abused as children by women but many are too terrified to come forward to police because of the ‘stigma’ attached to it.
Exclusive data from the National Association for People Abused in Childhood [NAPAC], shows that 8,818 call logs related to females sexually abusing children out of a total of 44,281 calls between July 2016 and April 2025.
Gabrielle Shaw, chief executive of the NAPAC tells The Sun: “It shocks people to hear, but we speak to survivors every week who were sexually abused by a woman.
“Many have stayed silent for years, crushed by shame and convinced no one would believe them.
“But abuse is abuse – it doesn’t matter who did it. What matters is that survivors know they’re not alone, and help is out there.”;
Rotherham survivor Elizabeth Harper* was 15 when she was groomed by a woman – Shafina Ali – who drugged her and orchestrated her rape by multiple British-Pakistani men.
Although Elizabeth wasn’t raped by Shafina – who died before charges could be brought – she blames her for the horrific sexual abuse she endured during her teen years.
She tells The Sun: “There’s this stereotype of women being maternal and loving so you don’t expect them to offend, but I know just how evil they can be.
“Shafina was a monster who drugged me and facilitated my abuse. I wouldn’t have suffered that if it hadn’t been for her.
“I still have flashbacks of her, leaning over my bed. Every time I see a woman who looks like her, it petrifies me.
I still have flashbacks of her, leaning over my bed. Every time I see a woman who looks like her, it petrifies me
Elizabeth Harper
“I hope this report raises awareness of just how many women might be involved in child sexual abuse and gets people talking.
“We also need more regular criminal profiling of female perpetrators involved in horrific sexual child abuse.
“Police seem to only focus on the really high profile cases – the s and the s – but there is clearly a lot of under-reporting going on.
“As a mum now, I will never understand how any woman can inflict pain on someone else’s child – or their own.”;
Disturbing reality
The findings follow a string of high profile cases involving female child sex offenders in recent months.
In June, activist Nicola Murray, 46, was caged for three years in for physically and sexually assaulting four children.
Murray forced her tongue into the mouths of twochildrenand made another youngster view an explicit image she had taken of a man she wasdating.
In March, Nichole Pratt, 25, from Leominster, , was jailed for seven-and-a-half years after evidence of her abusing two children was found on a USB stick and her phone.
And in January, Bethany Hill, 26, from , East Yorks., was for sexually abusing a child with her partner Zabien Burns, 26, in a case dubbed one of the UK’s “most horrific and despicable”;.
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation (LFF), a child protection charity dedicated to preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation, says ten per cent of callers to its Stop It Now helpline who report having sexual thoughts about children but have not yet harmed a child, are women.
Dr Alexandra Bailey works at the charity with women who have committed sexual offences against children, or might pose a risk to them.
She tells The Sun: “I think in society, we generally tend to think of women as being the nurturers and the carers, and certainly not individuals that would be seen to be sexually aggressive in any way.
“The problem with that is we can then deny that women are able to cause sexual harm, which we know they are.”;
Other shocking cases involve female family members who are often organised and ritualistic.
Gabrielle says: “This is a hidden and often misunderstood form of abuse that typically happens within families or close-knit communities.
“These survivors are 4.6 times more likely to name their grandmother as a perpetrator, and three times more likely to name an aunt.
“It’s hard for most people to imagine – but that’s precisely why it’s been hidden for so long.
“These aren’t one-off cases. They reflect a disturbing reality: women, including those in trusted care-giving roles, can and do commit abuse, sometimes as part of a wider, inter-generational pattern.
“Until we face up to that, survivors will continue to suffer in silence.”;
As a mum now, I will never understand how any woman can inflict pain on someone else’s child – or their own
Elizabeth Harper
Figures from a Freedom of Information request carried out by BBC Radio 4’s File On 4 show in 2021 revealed there were over 10,400 reports of female child sex abuse from 2015 to 2019 – equivalent to an average of 40 a week.
Between 2015 and 2019, the numbers of reported cases of female-perpetrated child sexual abuse to police in England and rose from 1,249 to 2,297 – an increase of 84 per cent.
The most recent Home Office statistics, covering March 2023 to March 2024, show a 27 per cent increase in females arrested for sexual offences (up by 237 to 1,124). How many of those involved child sexual abuse is not published.
Among individuals reporting their experiences of child sex abuse to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales (IICSA), 16 per cent of those abused in residential care, and six per cent of those abused in other institutional contexts such as schools, sports and religious settings, said female perpetrators were involved, although in some cases these may have been other children.
‘In denial’
One such case was that of teacher Rebecca Joynes, jailed for six-and-a-half years last July.
Joynes, 30, from , Greater , sexually abused two schoolboys and later had a baby with one of them after bedding him on 30 different occasions.
The father of her child talked of the hold Joynes had over him in a powerful victim impact statement read out at court.
He said: “I struggled to come to terms with my abuse. I was completely in denial.
“I subsequently held back and did not fully open up to people... Rebecca was in my head that much. I would argue until I was blue in the face protecting her.”;
He added: “It tore my family apart. They struggled to come to terms with the fact they sent me to school, where they believed it to be a safe environment, and this happened as a result.”;
It tore my family apart. They struggled to come to terms with the fact they sent me to school, where they believed it to be a safe environment, and this happened as a result
Child sexual abuse survivor
Overall, female child sex abuse rates are still far lower than they are for male child sex abusers.
According to the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse (CSA Centre) males account for 92 per cent of the abusers.
The most recent data from the UK Office for National Statistics shows 3.8 per cent of child sexual abuse survivors say their perpetrator was a female. A further 4.5 per cent reported their abuse was by both a male and female.
‘Tip of a very large iceberg’
But forensic psychologist Dr Joe Sullivan warns: “The official statistics are like the tip of a very large iceberg.”;
While based in the Behavioural Analysis Unit (BAU) of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, Dr Sullivan assisted police in many of the UK’s highest profile investigations into the disappearance, sexual abuse, exploitation and sexual murder of children.
He tells The Sun: “The problem with relying on official crime statistics is that they only relate to people who were accused, investigated, prosecuted and convicted.
“Victim/survivor studies suggest that approximately 95 per cent never report child sexual abuse.
“Of the five per cent who do, the vast majority will never see their allegation result in a conviction.
“Hence, most female perpetrators of child sexual abuse never come to the attention of the police and therefore don’t get classified as sex offenders.”;
Victim/survivor studies suggest that approximately 95 per cent never report child sexual abuse... Hence, most female perpetrators of child sexual abuse never come to the attention of the police and therefore don’t get classified as sex offenders
Dr Joe Sullivan
The latest Ministry of Justice figures help support what Dr Sullivan says.
They reveal 6,825 offenders were found guilty of child abuse in England and Wales in 2024. Of them, there were just 67 convictions of female abusers.
NAPAC says the stigma attached to being abused is a contributing reason many people won’t reach out for help.
Gabrielle adds: “Survivors often carry deep shame when the perpetrator was a woman.
“This stigma affects both male and female survivors equally and is fuelled by harmful myths like ‘boys enjoy it’ or women don’t do that sort of thing’. These ideas silence people, sometimes for decades.”;
‘Rationalise’ sick behaviour
Like men, female abusers will often justify, minimise or rationalise their behaviour.
Dr Sullivan, who has interviewed hundreds of perpetrators of child sexual abuse over her 39-year career says: “One mother described how she sexually abused her severely physically and mentally disabled son to allow him to experience sex with another person, because his condition deprived him of that opportunity.
“A foster carer that I worked with described a grooming process with two boys in her care which involved showing them adult movies and then offering to let the boys do what they had seen in the movies to her.
One mother described how she sexually abused her severely physically and mentally disabled son to allow him to experience sex with another person
Dr Joe Sullivan
“Another mother described how she began sexually abusing her daughter as an infant to normalise the abuse and manipulate her daughter into believing there was nothing unusual with what was happening.”;
The announced a raft of new measures and an investment of £10million to tackle child sexual abuse earlier this year.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are determined to bring the perpetrators of child sexual abuse to justice, regardless of whether they are male or female.
“We are strengthening law enforcement’s response, both to tackle the historic cases that were not properly investigated, and also to stamp out the abuse still taking place today.”;
If you’ve been affected by anything in this article, NAPAC offers free and confidential support to all adult survivors of any kind of childhood abuse. Call 0808 801 0331 or visit www.napac.org.uk.
*Elizabeth Harper is not her real name.
