A charity is calling for tougher controls on social networks after it was revealed that on average one schoolchild in every class has received a naked image from an adult on the internet.

Research commissioned by children's charity NSPCC showed there were 19 such offences recorded in Powys in a six month period following the introduction of the offence of sexual communication with a child in 2017.

Freedom of Information requests from the organisation revealed there were more than 3,000 offences recorded in Wales and England involving children aged between seven and 16.

A total of 274 offences were recorded across the four Welsh police forces, with more than half of the crimes logged by South Wales Police – 158.

There were 53 in North Wales and 44 in the Gwent force area.

Although Welsh grooming offences were recorded on 23 different platforms, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat were the top three most-commonly used, with more than 120 taking place using those alone.

Peter Wanless, the NSPCC’s chief executive, said the practice of adults sending sexual communications to children was becoming normalised, with social networks the "gateway for child abuse".

"Grooming can no longer be shrugged off as secondary to other online crimes," he said.

"It is happening now, it is happening to very young children, it is happening so frequently that it's becoming normalised, and it is not only coming from adult strangers, but also from known adults. Social networks have become a gateway for child abuse.

"The NSPCC has launched a petition calling on UK Government’s digital secretary Jeremy Wright and home secretary Sajid Javid to put an end to the Wild West Web.

"We need tough regulation of social networks to make sure there are fundamental protections for children in place whatever sites they’re using."

According to the charity, a separate survey of nearly 40,000 children revealed one in 50 has sent a nude or semi-nude image to an adult, while one in 20 children aged between 12 and 16 said they had received such an image.

Before the new offence of Sexual Communication with a Child came into force in April 2017, police couldn't intervene until groomers met young people in person.

A 2008 report by Professor Tanya Byron's called 'Safer Children in a Digital World' made 38 recommendations for making the online world safe for children.

But despite the Government's recent promise to make the UK the safest place in the world for children online, the charity says that just 16 of those recommendations have been fully acted on.