Protecting missing people from exploitation

On a daily basis, Humberside Police officers work hard to locate and safeguard vulnerable members of the community who have been reported missing by their family, a guardian or a partnering agency.

These are children, teenagers and young adults who may have never been missing before, or in fact, regularly go missing and are vulnerable of being exploited by criminals, whether that be to assist organised crime groups with drug dealing, or because they are being groomed and are victims of child sexual exploitation or human trafficking.

Chief Inspector Owen Stafford said: “As police officers in our line of work, we are here to protect some of the most vulnerable members of our community who are targeted for the purposes of child criminal or sexual exploitation.

“For us, it isn’t just about finding them, it is what we do after too, to mitigate them coming to serious harm as a result of these criminals.

“When a child or young adult is at risk of being exploited sadly, we start to see a number of tell tail signs that this is happening and that is why we have to work quickly to protect them.

“They may become withdrawn from their family and friends as well as school and college, careless about their appearance or in fact start wearing often expensive and designer clothing which has been gifted by those who have exploited them.

“Either way, criminals are exploiting vulnerable members of our community to the point they then become reliant on them to provide for them.

Alongside a general change in their appearance, there is a change in their emotional wellbeing, they may become secretive and will tend to go missing from either home or school.

Owen Stafford continued: “When a vulnerable child, teenager or adult is being exploited and are reported missing to us repeatedly, alongside our investigative lines of enquiry to find them, we will often issue an appeal on our social media channels.

“When we do issue an appeal, whether it is the first or the fifth time we have appealed for help every share really does assist us in generating further lines of enquiry to make sure we can get them home safely.

“In these circumstances, it is really important we get each appeal far and wide as when they do go missing, they are at increased risk of being trafficked across not only our force area, but potentially other areas of the country.

Once a missing person has been found, working alongside their family and partnering agencies will do everything we can to give them the wrap around support and help they need.

If a missing person is in immediate danger, is a young child or vulnerable to harm, call 999 now. Alternatively, you can contact the Police on their non-emergency number 101.