Influencers driving extreme misogyny, say UK police

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - LONDON — Online influencers like Andrew Tate are radicalizing boys into extreme misogyny in a way that is "quite terrifying", police are warning.

Senior UK police officer Maggie Blyth said young men and boys could be radicalized similarly to how terrorists draw in followers.

She was speaking as the National Police Chiefs Council published a report into violence against women and girls, which it is calling a "national emergency".

The NPCC estimated at least one in 12 women in England and Wales would be a victim of violence every year — or about two million women.

And it said the problem had been growing, with "more complicated types of offending".

Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth said officers who focused on violence against women and girls were now working with counter-terrorism teams to look at the risk of young men being radicalized.

Speaking about harmful content online, she said: "We know that some of this is also linked to radicalization of young people online, we know the influencers, Andrew Tate, the element of influencing of particularly boys, is quite terrifying and that's something that both the leads for counterterrorism in the country and ourselves from a VAWG [violence against women and girls] perspective are discussing."

Tate is a controversial British-American influencer and self-proclaimed "misogynist" who rose to fame after appearing on Big Brother in 2016.

He is currently awaiting trial in Romania over allegations of rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women — charges he denies.

Schools across the UK previously told the BBC they were encountering increasing numbers of pupils who admired Tate.

The wide-ranging report by the NPCC and College of Policing published on Tuesday said violence against women and girls had reached "epidemic" levels.

It identified several key threats facing victims including sexual violence, domestic abuse, stalking and child sexual abuse.

It found there had been a 37% increase in the number of violent crimes against women and girls between 2018 and 2023.

Police say more than a million such crimes were recorded in England and Wales last year alone, accounting for 20% of all crimes recorded by the police.

Some of the rise has been driven by an increase in reporting and more awareness of those crimes.

But police chiefs say domestic abuse is growing and remains one of the biggest demands on officers.

And it is estimated that one in 20 adults — or 2.3 million people — were perpetrators of such violence every year.

The NPCC says it creating a central hub that would offer police forces help by providing specialist knowledge and training.

The government says it welcomes the hub and aims to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has previously made clear that violence against women and girls will be at the top of her agenda.

So far the detail on their plans has been light, but in their manifesto, Labour said it would introduce new specialist domestic abuse workers in 999 control rooms and put specialist rape investigation units in every force across England and Wales so that early opportunities for prevention and protection were not missed.

This would entail more trained police officers and extra resources at a time when policing faced numerous challenges including retention and morale issues. — BBC