SESSION INFORMATION

Recent law enforcement investigations and media reports highlight the rise of “Com networks’: loosely organised online communities that intertwine child sexual abuse material (CSAM), sextortion, coercion, animal cruelty, self-harm, extremist rhetoric, and violent misogyny. These groups illustrate a troubling hybridisation of harms, blurring distinctions between sexual offending and extremist violence. While CSAM offending has traditionally been viewed as evidence of sexual motivation or paedophilic interest, within Com networks it often functions as coercion, a marker of transgression, and a signal of belonging in communities organised around cruelty and grievance.

Drawing on plenary discussions at the 2025 NOTA International Conference, this commentary integrates insights from research, law enforcement, and clinical practice. It argues that Com networks should be understood both as a novel digital phenomenon and as part of a continuum in which violence, extremism, and sexual abuse converge; and outlines key research and practice priorities for prevention and intervention.

This study advances understanding of Com networks, challenging conventional distinctions between sexual offending, cybercrime, and radicalisation. It shows how these hybrid communities groom and coerce adolescents, and how motivations extend beyond sexual interest to include grievance, status-seeking, and ideological drivers. The research identifies key gaps in current explanatory frameworks and intervention models. It highlights the need for integrated, interdisciplinary approaches, combining criminological, psychological, feminist, and digital culture perspectives, to inform prevention, risk assessment, and treatment, and to support holistic strategies for safeguarding vulnerable young people.


ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Stuart Allardyce is a Director at the child protection charity, The Lucy Faithfull Foundation and has responsibility for Stop It Now services in Scotland. He has worked in the child sexual abuse field as a social worker for over 25 years. He is co-author of ‘Working with Children and Young People Who Have Displayed Harmful Sexual Behaviour’ (Dunedin Press, 2018),  ‘Sibling Sexual Abuse: A Knowledge and Practice Overview’ (Centre for expertise on child sexual abuse, 2021) and ‘Harmful Sexual Behaviour and Autism: Working with Children and Young People’ (Jessica Kingsley, 2026).

Ethel Quayle is Professor of Forensic Clinical Psychology in the School of Health in Social Science at the University of Edinburgh. She trained as a clinical psychologist before moving into research and for over 20 years her focus has been on technology-mediated crimes against children, collaborating internationally with academic, government and non-government agencies in the context of research, policy and practice. Recent NIHR funded research has focused on a digital intervention (i-Minds) to improve mental health and interpersonal resilience in young people who have experienced TASA. Ethel has played an active role in a number of EU, UK Home Office and Scottish government organisations. 

Rob Richardson – Deputy Threat Lead CSA – Threat Leadership, NCA .Rob leads project RHYOBASALT which is the national response to the Com Network threat. The projects seeks to bring together a coherent response across law enforcement, safeguarding partnerships, industry, academia and the third sector to deliver a public health approach to this new harmful threat.