Grooming gang victims could be deterred from coming forward in future due to Labour's latest online safety laws, an expert has warned.

Speaking to GB News, Founder of Open Justice UK Adam Wren revealed that due to more and more content being restricted online, victims may no longer be encouraged to come forward.

The Government's latest rollout of safety measures, deemed to "protect children" from explicit content online, has sparked a fresh row between Labour Minister Peter Kyle and Nigel Farage.

Kyle accused the Reform UK leader of being on the "side of Jimmy Savile" due to his opposing view of the Online Safety Act.

Hitting back at the Labour MP, Farage demanded an apology for his "absolutely disgusting" and "below the belt" remarks.

GB News

Discussing the row on GB News, Wren pointed out the "most disgusting" element of Kyle's accusations towards Farage.

Wren explained: "The most disgusting thing is anybody that opposes a bill for any reason, and there are many, many legitimate reasons, those people are being now smeared with the same brush.

"I read a lot of tech people talking about being very uncomfortable with information being collated or the technical implementation details, and we have a computer programming and network experts saying this legislation is unworkable and therefore I'm against it - these people are now on the side of Jimmy Savile because of a technical opposition to it."

Highlighting one of his "biggest concerns" for the latest rollout of safety measures, Wren told GB News that the restriction of content could mean victims of sexual abuse "may not realise" that what is happening to them is wrong.

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Peter Kyle sparked a row with Nigel Farage over his opposition to the Online Safety Act

Wren said: "One of the things that really concerns me is that in some of the grooming gang transcripts that we've acquired, the judge says in one case that the girls only went to the police because they watched a BBC documentary called Three Girls, which was about children being groomed.

"My concern is if those girls weren't able to watch that documentary, they never would have gone to the police, those men never would have been charged, and they never would have been convicted. If we're blocking children at all from accessing this, it's not just pornography, anything that deals with sexual violence, they won't be able to get this kind of information."

He added: "If that documentary wasn't viewed by them, they wouldn't have known they were being abused. The judge directly says it was only when they watched that content that they realised it was a crime, because what was happening to them, they thought was normal."

Asked by host Emily Carver if he believes the restrictions could result in "less grooming gang victims being able to come forward", he agreed.

GB News

Wren stated: "It's a very real risk, and we know now that kids mostly engage with content online, they don't watch TV, not nowhere near as much as they used to.

"So these very badly worded clauses in the legislation that restrict any discussion or any content, or that deals with sexual violence, on the face of it seems agreeable, but the ramifications are unbelievable."

Asked how we can best protect children online, Wren concluded: "I think the parents should take much more responsibility, we have a lot of parental controls that can be put in place.

"It's a tough thing to do without a doubt, but this is so heavy handed it's unworkable."