Children as young as ten are getting hooked on a 'pick and mix of horror' online which is placing them on a 'conveyor belt' to terrorism, national terror boss warns
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Children as young as ten are getting hooked on a ‘pick and mix of horror’ online which is placing them on a ‘conveyor belt’ to terrorism, a top officer warned yesterday. Vicki Evans, senior national co-ordinator for counter terrorism policing, said officers were seeing a ‘rapidly increasing fascination with extreme violence’ among schoolchildren who are searching out horrific violence, ‘gore’, extreme pornography, and racism online.
![[Children aged 11-15 now make up the largest proportion of referrals to the Government’s de-radicalisation Prevent programme (file image)]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/18/21/93290803-14207425-Children_aged_11_15_now_make_up_the_largest_proportion_of_referr-a-42_1734558826088.jpg)
The Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner warned youngsters were being drawn to terrorism after watching ‘grotesque’ videos of school massacres and were ending up ‘shopping, picking between (terrorist) ideologies’, with officers finding ‘staggering’ internet search histories for ones so young.
![[Police arrested a record number of children, some as young as 12, for terrorism offences last year (File image)]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/18/21/92846797-14207425-Children_are_being_drawn_to_terrorism_in_record_numbers_by_the_c-a-45_1734559056594.jpg)
Speaking for the first time since taking up the role earlier this year, Ms Evans said: ‘What is new and becoming far more common and more prevalent is this rapidly increasing fascination with extreme violence and extreme content that we’re seeing throughout our case work.
‘The type of material that we’re encountering, and my officers and staff are encountering in casework, is absolutely staggering and horrific. ‘So we are seeing search histories which contain violence, misogyny, gore, extreme pornography, racism, fascination with mass violence, school massacres, incel.
