A child protection expert says there is an ‘irrefutable’ link between unsupervised smartphone use and sexual offending.

Exposure to pornography from a young age, almost invariably through a smartphone, has become an almost routine fixture of sexual offence cases involving child offenders when they appear before the courts.

According to figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), more than 20 per cent of sexual offences are committed by a male child. The link with pornography, according to Kieran McGrath, a social worker with 30 years’ experience, is “irrefutable”.

Most professionals working with children who display concerning behaviour believe there is a direct connection between sexual offending and the ease with which they can access extreme pornography on a device that can be all but impossible for parents to supervise.

“It coincides with the smartphone, so the last decade or so,” says Mr McGrath, when asked when he had first started to notice the problem.