Police spend £1 billion a year probing child sex abuse… and it’s due to TREBLE by 2020

POLICE spent a staggering £1billion probing cases of child sex abuse last year – and experts believe the figure will treble by 2020.

Simon Bailey, the top officer in charge of child protection, last night revealed there were 70,000 investigations in 2015.

He added: "The average cost of each investigation is £19,000, so the police force is now spending a billion pounds a year on cases.

"If it continues at this rate, we will be investigating 200,000 cases at a cost of £3billion by 2020."

Mr Bailey initially believed that an increase in cases was down to more victims coming forward after DJ Jimmy Savile was exposed.

The shamed Top of the Pops presenter, who died in 2011, is thought to have been one of Britain's most prolific paedophiles, with more than 1,000 victims.

But he now believes more victims are being abused, both by adults who groom children and peer-on-peer abuse.

Mr Bailey, the chief constable for Norfolk Constabulary, linked the the shocking rise in cases to the prevalence of internet pornography.

He told the Times that children grow up watching porn "thinking it is normal", thanks to the ease with which they can access it.

He cited an instance where a 12-year-old put his penis into the mouth of a four-year-old girl and said: "Well, that's what you do Mum, I've seen it."

His comments come as Labour warns that Britain's sexting crisis is a "ticking time-bomb" for a generation of children.

Lucy Powell, the Shadow Education Secretary, will today argue that social media is "helping fuel premature sexualisation of young people".

Her party has obtained data showing that Britain's police forces investigated 560 sexting cases involving under-16s last year – up from eight in 2010.