ELEVEN-year-old girls are becoming potential targets for grooming in a Darwen park.

Child sexual exploitation experts have received a number of reports of drunk teenage girls meeting up with adult men at Bold Venture Park in recent weeks.

Police confirmed they had already had to take several children home to their parents and speak to a number of men, some in their 30s, about their behaviour.

The award-winning Engage team, which combines a number of partner agencies to tackle predatory adults grooming vulnerable young girls, is in the early stages of an investigation.

They are being assisted by local neighbourhood officers to try to put in early prevention at the popular local park.

A spokesman for Engage said: “There is some concern about children going drinking in Bold Venture park. It has been flagged up that children are being given alcohol in the park, which we suspect could lead them to being vulnerable to exploitation.

“Police have been paying particular attention to the area in the last few weeks and a number of girls have been taken home drunk and some older men spoken to at the park.”

The men are of mixed ages and ethnicities, police said and no formal action has yet been taken.

The spokesman added: “It is very early doors. We have been getting reports from concerned parents and people in the park who have seen what’s going on.

“We are now looking into prevention strategies, which is typical of how this team works.”

The Engage team will examine how the park has become a hotspot for potential grooming. They will investigate whether it is being flagged up between local teenagers via social networking.

Another line of inquiry is whether men are buying alcohol to lure the girls in, or if they are targeting the park because teenage girls already go there for underage drinking.

The spokesman said: “It is too early to say what the pattern is, but it is our main concern at the moment and leads us to think children may become vulnerable.

“If we can put in the work now, we can safeguard other children who may otherwise become involved.

“The message to these girls is that under-age drinking in a public place at night can make children vulnerable to all sorts of different dangers, not only sexual exploitation.

“It is something the police and the Engage team are actively seeking to prevent.”

The crackdown at Bold Venture Park will aim to achieve similar results to an operation at Vue Cinema in Blackburn town centre.

The Engage team gave training to staff at the complex and put up posters after it became a hotspot for child sexual exploitation.

The revelations come as the Government launch a two-year investigation into the plight of thousands of children who are sexually exploited by street gangs.

The probe, led by the Deputy Children’s Commissioner Sue Berelowitz, is to examine the extent of the problem in England.

Current figures suggest up to 10,000 youngsters could be subject to sexual abuse by gangs or other groups, but other research indicates the figures could be much higher and act as a ‘wake up call’.

The investigation team will gather evidence from police and local authorities as well as health and youth justice workers until early next year, before publishing an interim report in July.

More information will then be gathered the following autumn into early 2013, and the final report will be released in September that year.

Concerns have already been raised this year about a lack of action over the sexual abuse of children.

Leading children’s charity Barnardo’s warned parents and professionals were missing telltale signs of youngsters being groomed for sex.

And in June the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) published damning research which found that two-thirds of Local Safeguarding Children Boards were not meeting national guidelines and have failed to put in place 'basic processes' to stop sexual abuse.

However, it held up Lancashire’s multi-agency approach - led by initiatives such as Engage - as the way forward.

An Engage spokesman said: “The country is not dealing with child sexual exploitation properly as a whole and we are held up as a beacon for others to learn from.”