Child porn offenders face harsher sentences

Paedophiles who view obscene images ‘should be dealt with as severely as abusers’

PAEDOPHILES who download child sex abuse images will face tougher prison sentences under a Government crackdown as official figures show that just one in four is jailed.

The Solicitor General says today that sex offenders who download or share indecent images should be dealt with by the courts as harshly as those who abuse children themselves.

Robert Buckland told The Daily Telegraph that downloading and sharing child pornography was just as “insidious” as direct sexual abuse.

Official figures show that the proportion of online sex offenders jailed has halved in the past 10 years.

Only a quarter of those sentenced at crown court over child pornography offences were sent to jail, down from just under half a decade ago. The rest were given suspended sentences, community sentences or fines.

This newspaper has learnt that the government is planning to enable victims and members of the public to challenge sentences handed down for downloading indecent images.

Under plans put forward by the Solicitor General, child pornography offences will be brought into the “unduly lenient sentence” scheme, meaning they can be challenged, reviewed and increased by the Court of Appeal.

Mr Buckland said: “We have got to make sure that it’s fully understood that use of the internet to download and share images of child abuse is as insidious a crime as direct sexual assault.

“I’m talking about people who are using the internet to exploit children. It’s the gateway. It facilitates the commission of other offences, it can lead on to more horrendous crimes. People are making money out of this, children are being abused.

“Whilst I understand that police are having to deal with a large number of these cases and the analysis of hardware and software can be time-consuming, the possession and distribution of this kind of image is child abuse. The public view it seriously.

“I do hear that the weight of cases is a challenge but that shouldn’t detract from the seriousness of this type of offending and the fact that too many children and young people are being exploited, in many cases for the gratification of people living hundreds of miles away.”

Police chiefs have said there should be a national debate about whether men who view images of child abuse should face prosecution or be given counselling after a “horrifying” surge in numbers of such offences.

Last year 2,528 people were sentenced at crown court for downloading indecent images of children, with fewer than a quarter of them receiving a jail sentence. A fifth were given community sentences and just under half suspended sentences.

Of the 14,624 paedophiles sentenced over child abuse images between 2007 and 2017, only 4,683 were jailed. Nearly 10,000 were given suspended sentences and community sentences.

Police have warned that they are having to “streamline” and focus on the most serious cases after the number of people sentenced for downloading child abuse images increased by 276 per cent over the past decade. Dave Thompson, the chief constable of West

Midlands Police, has said that society needs to have a “big discussion” on whether people who viewed child abuse images should be prosecuted. He said last year: “Of course it makes us all deeply uncomfortable to think that people who engage in those activities should in any way escape punishment but the scale of it is absolutely huge.”

Simon Bailey, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for child protection, suggested that paedophiles who viewed indecent images should not be charged or taken to court unless they posed a physical threat to children.

He said that low-level offenders should simply be placed on the sex offenders’ register and be given counselling and rehabilitation.

The Government is also considering whether the offence of abusing a position of trust should be brought under the unduly lenient sentence scheme.

Other offences that could be added include dangerous driving and “reckless” assault. Rapists and killers were among 137 criminals given tougher penalties last year following complaints that their original sentences were too soft, a slight fall on the record 141 in the previous 12 months.

The Attorney General’s office received 943 requests for a review under the scheme last year, up from 837 in 2016. The Court of Appeal received 173 sentences to be looked at again, compared with 190 in 2016. The Attorney General’s office noted that the number of increased sentences was a very small proportion of the 80,000 crown court cases heard each year.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Online child sexual exploitation is sickening, and offenders who take or distribute indecent images already face 10 years in prison, with record numbers given custodial sentences in 2017.

“Last year, we also made it illegal to communicate sexually with a child, and we will shortly set out further measures to protect child victims in our Victim’s Strategy.

“However, sentencing is a matter for independent judges who make decisions based on the full facts of each case.”