NINETEEN men from North Yorkshire have contacted a charity helpline in the last year to deal with their attraction to sexual images of children.

The men called a confidential helpline operated by Stop it Now!, a sexual abuse prevention campaign run by child protection charity, the Lucy Faithfull Foundation.

The helpline, which offers anonymous, effective support about online sexual behaviour, also received a further ten calls from people in the county with concerns about others.

The charity has not released the number of calls made from residents in the North-East, but said those from people in North Yorkshire represented 1.3 per cent of the 1,461 calls received from across the UK from adults concerned about their online behaviour.

It added 95 people from York visited the Stop it Now! Get Help website at get-help.stopitnow.org.uk over the same period to access online self-help tools and information to tackle either their own viewing of sexual images of children, or that of a loved one.

The charity has released the figures as more than 250 safeguarding practitioners from across the UK met in Wakefield for the Safeguarding Children in the Digital World conference, organised by the Ripon-based Marie Collins Foundation run by Tink Palmer, which helps children to recover from online sexual abuse and exploitation, and West Yorkshire Police.

The figures for people accessing help through the Stop it Now! helpline and website come at a time when the police forces across the country are reporting an rise in online viewing and sharing of child abuse images.

In October, the National Police Chiefs Council child protection lead, Chief Constable Simon Bailey, said 100,000 people were regularly viewing online sexual images of children.