More than one in five 15-year-old girls in Cheshire have been cyberbullied in the past few months.

Survey data released by the Health and Social Care Information Centre has revealed the proportion of 15-year-olds who had experienced cyberbullying in the months before being asked.

Girls in Cheshire East were more likely to have recently been the victims of cyberbullying, with as many as 22.3 per cent saying they had been.

However, girls in Cheshire West and Chester were close behind with 22 per cent saying they had been cyberbullied recently.

Cheshire West and Chester was the most likely place in Cheshire for boys to have experienced cyberbullying with 11.7 per cent of respondents saying they had been bullied online.

Awareness being raised today

Across England girls were far more likely than boys to experience cyberbullying according to the HSCIC's What About YOUth? survey, with 19 per cent recently experiencing cyberbullying compared to 10.4 per cent of boys.

Today is Safer Internet Day across the UK with awareness being raised about the dangers that young people face in a world that is increasingly reliant on the internet.

A new UK Safer Internet Centre study shows that 4 in 5 young people witnessed online hate targeting a specific group in the last year.

Will Gardner, a Director of the UK Safer Internet Centre and CEO of Childnet, said: "While it is encouraging to see that almost all young people believe no one should be targeted with online hate, and heartening to hear about the ways young people are using technology to take positive action online to empower each other and spread kindness, we were surprised and concerned to see that so many had been exposed to online hate in the last year.

'A wake-up call for us all'

"It is a wake-up call for all of us to play our part in helping create a better internet for all, to ensure that everyone can benefit from the opportunities that technology provides for building mutual respect and dialogue, facilitating rights, and empowering everyone to be able to express themselves and be themselves online - whoever they are."

Baroness Shields, Minister for Internet Safety and Security at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, said: "There is one internet for everyone, whatever their age, and that means we need to ensure the rights and needs of children are protected so that they can explore, create and dream without fear. Safer Internet Day is about everyone doing their part to empower children and give them the skills to interact safely and responsibly and get the most out of the connected world."