In the Guardian today:

Lawyers and campaigners have condemned the “horrifying” scale of child-on-child sexual abuse in schools after a Guardian investigation revealed thousands of sexual offences against under-13s, including multiple rapes, are reported to police every year. Close to five sexual crimes against children aged 12 and younger were recorded on average by police every day in primary and secondary schools in England and Wales, according to Guardian analysis of police data for 2021-25. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/oct/04/child-on-child-sexual-abuse-schools-england-and-wales

Directly comparable figures are not available.

However, sexual offences based on police records published in government outlets are.

In the year ending March 2026, there were 217 567 sexual offences recorded in England and Wales.

With a 62 million population, 11.3 times that of Scotland at 5.5 million, all things being equal, you’d expect 19 254 such offences recorded in Scotland.

There were 16 430, around 2 800 fewer, 15% lower.

Sources:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2025-26/pages/sexual-crimes/ https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2026

On child sexual abuse and exploitation in England and Wales, 2024/2025, the figure was 103 547.

There is no directly comparable figure for Scotland but 34% of the above 16 430 related to a victim under 18 – 5 260. Per head of population this would be just over half the level in England & Wales. Were it the other way round you can be sure the media operating in Scotland would care little and we’d be in a ‘Child sex abuse capital’ before you know it.

Sources:

https://www.csacentre.org.uk/app/uploads/2026/07/The-scale-and-nature-of-child-sexual-abuse-2026.pdf https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2025-26/pages/sexual-crimes/

Perhaps tellingly, there have been no reports in Scotland using language like: the “horrifying” scale of child-on-child sexual abuse in schools.

The closest official document is the Scottish Government Expert Group report, Prevention of and responses to harmful sexual behaviour by children and young people (January 2020): https://www.gov.scot/publications/expert-group-preventing-sexual-offending-involving-children-young-people-prevention-responses-harmful-sexual-behaviour-children-young-people/

It treated peer sexual harm as a growing problem, driven in part by online offending. It cited a UK headteacher survey in which 95% of the Scottish respondents said their school had had an incident of online peer-on-peer abuse, and 80% said such incidents had increased over the previous three years. It also noted that at least a third of sexual offences against children in the UK are committed by other children, and that Scottish cyber-enabled sexual crime often involves under-16s offending against under-16s. It did not produce a school-premises offence total.

This report, unfortunately, does not tell you how many headteachers responded in this survey so is of very limited value.

Finally, astonishingly, the “at least one-third of sexual offences against children are committed by other children” line is not reliable. The Expert Group says that share was reached by averaging available UK figures, not from the headteacher poll. Really?

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