Lead supervisor:
Prof Nuria Lorenzo-Dus 
Start date: October 2020
Award: Collaborative
Subject Pathway:
Linguistics and Bilingualism
Thematic Cluster:
Language, Learning and Behaviour Cluster
Online Child Sexual Abuse: A Discourse Analysis of Clear-Web Paedophile Communities
Working in partnership with TARIAN ROCU this PhD investigated online child sexual abuse and exploitation, focusing on offender-to-offender communication
In the past, most research into paedophile language focused on offline grooming and the interactions between offenders and victims. Increasingly, research into online grooming communication developed and linguists became involved in the field. However, little research was done on the communication between offenders online despite the potential for improving profiling, identification, and prevention.
Using data from real offender-to-offender interactions, this project aimed to understand the offender’s modus operandi and offending processes, as well as risk-taking practices and hierarchies in online grooming communities. Discourse analysis methods were employed to contribute to this under-researched area of the field by examining offender-to-offender communication separately from victim-to-offender communication. The direct impact of this research on law enforcement protocols and practice could manifest via improvements in coded-message detection, linguistic profiling of offenders, and enabling more successful infiltration of online child sexual abuse networks by undercover police.