Significant drop in sextortion reports in Nottinghamshire after hard-hitting prevention campaign
A hard-hitting Nottinghamshire Police campaign has helped reduce reports of sextortion by 78 percent across the force area.
Sextortion is a type of online blackmail, where criminals threaten to share nude or semi-nude photographs of their victim (often to the victim’s personal contacts on social media) or information about them if money isn’t paid or if the victim fails to comply with some other harmful demand.
In some cases, criminals pose as ‘young and attractive’ women online and then befriend men usually in their teens or early 20s on their social media platforms.
They will encourage them to send naked pictures or videos of themselves and then use that material against them, threatening to send it to family and friends unless they are paid.
Nottinghamshire Police launched an eye-catching campaign last year, to raise awareness of this devastating crime type and prevent people from becoming victims.
The campaign was launched following a steep rise in the number of sextortion reports across the city and county.
During 2024, the force investigated 403 blackmail cases, 265 of which were sextortion offences.
To help prevent more young people falling victim to sextortion, police launched an awareness-raising campaign, working closely with the city university wellbeing teams.
The prevention work included deployments of a digivan used to promote our campaign messaging to students on large screens at university campuses and other pop-up locations.
Police also worked with the Revenge Porn Helpline - a service which supports adult victims of intimate image abuse in the UK - to create educational training packages relating to both sextortion and ‘catfishing’ to be used to help victims.
Since launching the sextortion campaign, the number of sextortion reports has reduced from 65 (received between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025) to 14 (received between 1 April 2025 to 24 March 2026).
Detective Chief Inspector Chris Berryman, whose team investigates sextortion cases, said: “While it’s encouraging that we’ve seen a significant reduction in sextortion reports since launching our campaign, I want to reassure the public that we’re not complacent with these results.
“We remain focused on preventing and reducing these types of crimes even further and providing even better support to victims, as well as continuing to investigate reports and working hard to bring offenders to justice.
“We know that sextortion can have a devastating impact on young people and their families and it can be a difficult topic to discuss, causing distress and fear for victims as well as making them feel deep shame and embarrassment.”
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The Revenge Porn Helpline supports all adult victims of intimate image abuse in the UK. The helpline is open from 10am to 4pm Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays). The phone number for the helpline is 0345 6000 459.