How Police Scotland’s “Sneaky Peek” campaign protected children from online sexual abuse

Police Scotland were aware of a 6% increase in online child sexual abuse crimes, and this only accounted for the crimes that were reported – the real percentage was likely higher. Joining us at Orlo’s BIG Social 2025, Linda McLean (Head of Communications Specialist Services, Police Scotland) and her team knew that something needed to be done. They decided to implement an innovative campaign to prevent these crimes from happening.

With the understanding that campaigns are more effective when they take a “therapeutic” approach (with a focus on supporting offenders and potential offenders to change their behaviour), they decided to partner with the Lucy Faithfull Foundation. The Lucy Faithfull Foundation is a charity running anonymous prevention and support initiatives for people with potentially harmful thoughts or behaviour towards children.

Linda and her team were well aware that the public would rather see consequence-focussed messaging for this sort of crime, however they wanted to raise awareness of the effectiveness of therapeutic-focused messaging. Their aims were therefore:

• To signpost men at risk of offending – or already offending – to appropriate support and resources so that they stop their behaviour.
• To generate awareness and positive sentiment around Police Scotland’s therapeutic campaign approach.  

Police Scotland needed this campaign to land with the target audience, so they ran focus groups with offenders of this crime in order to define the right profile, messaging and creative. As a result of these sessions, they learned that:

• People most likely to commit this crime were 25-40 year old men engaging repeatedly in risky behaviour online. 
• Offenders were typically “normal-looking” people living ordinary lives, generally with their own partners and children. 
• Crimes were most often committed on mobile phones, and on platforms that most people use on a daily basis. 
• Perpetrators spoke about being “sucked in” to the dark world of online child sexual abuse – it often wasn’t something they sought out for themselves. However, once they started it was difficult for them to stop.
• Criminals arrested of this crime spoke of the life-changing significance of the Police knocking at their door, and of how much they wished to turn back time so they could change their behaviour before it reached this point. 

Police Scotland’s campaign therefore targeted 25-40 year old men on social media platforms used everyday by most people, as well as earned and partner channels.

Following consultation with offenders, Police Scotland created video ads that focused on both the therapeutic (signposting resources) and consequence-based messaging. The campaign included powerful messaging inspired by offenders describing what they would change if they could turn back time to “before the knock on the door” from the Police.

At the same time, content was created by Stuart Allardyce of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, guaranteeing anonymity and confidential, non-judgemental support to anyone seeking help, and other content was created for specific community groups:

• Videos showing the impact of this crime on families, shared on partner websites such as the NSPCC.
• Consequence-focused messaging explaining the covert operations in place to catch perpetrators of this crime. The underlying message was: “if you don’t seek help, we will catch you.”

Police Scotland were able to secure a substantial £50,000 budget for its advertising campaign. The campaign targeted the following channels: 

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Tiktok
• Snapchat
• Spotify 
• Ozone Network

Police Scotland attempted to make partnerships with covert platforms mentioned by offenders, however these channels were not co-operative. The Lucy Faithfull Foundation requested that these platforms were not to be named in public, for obvious reasons.

Police Scotland launched a media campaign and secured participation from offenders who were prepared to talk openly about their experiences, and what they would change if they could return to “before the knock”. Police Scotland secured coverage within significant media (TV and radio, including the BBC) and press outlets (e.g. the BBC; Daily Mail; The Scotsman).

Campaign social media content was shared on partner social media pages, with participation from:

• NSPCC 
• NHS
• Lucy Faithfull Foundation
• Multiple local authorities

The campaign achieved its objectives, with the following impressive results during the campaign’s duration:

• 164,993 visits to the “Stop it now” page on the Lucy Faithfull Foundation website – an increase of 1675% compared to 6 weeks before launch.
• 79,000 unique visitors to the website, which marked a huge surge from before the campaign.
• 847 unique users spent time on the dedicated Resources pages. These are likely people looking for support to change their behaviour. 
• Calls to the “Stop it now” helpline increased by 31%. Once again, this indicates an increase in people trying to get support to change their thoughts or behaviour. 
• Online chats increased by 25%, specifically for unarrested offenders. This suggests that the campaign was successful in catching people before they were known to the police, and potentially before they had committed a crime. 

Paid social highlights

• 1.8 million impressions on Facebook / Instagram, 2% click-through rate
• 4 million impressions on TikTok, 0.7% click-through rate 

Linda explained that Sneaky Peek targeted one of the darkest and most complex issues that Police Scotland faces. It was a bold move to lead with a campaign that takes a more empathetic approach to preventing online child sexual abuse and exploitation.

However, the campaign’s results speak for itself: offering potential perpetrators support to change their behaviour has hopefully reduced the number of victims of this devastating crime.

Going forward, Police Scotland and other police forces will be able to take inspiration from the success of “Sneaky Peek”, and design preventative campaigns with equally impressive results.