But charities have warned these figures are likely to be “the tip of the iceberg” and say as much as 10,000 over 40s are likely to have fallen prey to sextortionists.
Neil Henderson, chief executive of Safeline which provides support to victims of sexual abuse, estimated that only one in six victims report this crime due to the accompanying “embarrassment, shame and humiliation”.
He said: “For our older individuals a lot of it is around financial harm.
“There are a number of people who have told us they have lost their jobs or choose to resign because they can’t face their colleagues.
“For a lot of people that age, there are a lot of suicidal tendencies that come out, a lot of self-harm and a real social rupturing.”
The Revenge Porn Helpline, which helps to remove tens of thousands of images of victims uploaded to social media and pornographic websites every year, said it is an uphill battle to remove content as it is shared so rapidly across the internet.
Sophie Mortimer, who runs the helpline, said: “We are more likely to see a certain naivety in older people about when they meet somebody new online and whether that person is who they say they are.
“We have had clients in their 80s, we have seen it all.
“We see a lot of sextortion where that’s predominantly men being contacted by someone they think is a woman but it’s actually an overseas crime gang. They are operating in the Philippines, Ivory Coast and Morocco.”
In the Moroccan town of Oued Zem, up to 3,000 people reportedly earn their living through sexually extorting men online.
Victims, many of whom are Westerners, are tricked into performing sex acts on webcam before blackmailers threaten to send the video to their friends and family on Facebook.
The scammers typically demand ransoms of around £800 (10,000 dirham) to delete the footage.
Campaigners are calling on the Home Office to reclassify revenge porn as a sexual offence, rather than a communication crime, which would grant victims automatic lifelong anonymity.
Professor Clare McGlynn from Durham University, who has helped shape UK laws around upksirting and violent pornography, said the Government has “consistently refused” to make the change, despite anonymity being made available for victims of FGM and forced marriages.
Although sharing intimate images without consent has carried a maximum prison sentence of two years since 2015, it was not until 2021 that the threat to share explicit images became a crime in itself.
The legal change was introduced in March this year in Parliament as one of a raft of amendments to the Government’s upcoming domestic abuse bill.
Sara’s story: Controlled and threatened by an ex
One 48-year-old woman, whose abusive boyfriend threatened to send explicit photos of herself to her family and work colleagues, feared she would suffer “career ruin”.
Sara had begun the relationship In July 2018 yet over the course of eight months her partner’s behaviour became increasingly “coercive and controlling”.
When she attempted to break up with him in May the following year, he revealed he had secretly recorded the pair of them being intimate and promised to destroy her professional life unless she stayed with him.
She tells The Telegraph her story in the clip below.
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