Huw Edwards got me thinking…

When people get done for this it's not because of the odd picture, it's because of hundreds of pictures.

If you receive without your consent these images then ALWAYS run screaming to the police. So bloody what if they investigate? They have to. But that investigation proves innocence as much as guilt. Plus the fact that the electronics prove provenance.

FORTY. OVER SEVERAL MONTHS.

FORTY.

FORTY IMAGES OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

INCLUDING MOVING IMAGES OF A BOY 7-9 CAT A.

Aren't you forgetting how many times this happened?

Making images simply means that you have received a digital transmission of a series of 0 and 1s and then that code has appeared in the form of an image on your device. You don't have to click on that image, to download it etc, on WhatsApp it is just there. But that is classed as you making an illegal image.

What a lot of people don't realise is that anybody could send you a horrific illegal image if they washed to and had one to hand or actually created one. Then you get a notification and look and it's yours and you have "made " it just by opening your phone. Even though you didn't expect it. Our request it

Now ( and this is where the lack of critical thinkers struggle as they are too busy salivating while baying for blood with pitchforks).

You can go to the police and report it and they will take your device and destroy it. Because it's got an illegal image on it. You don't get those back. But they could also go through that device and find porn. Or something questionable that triggers them coming and taking away every single device in your home. You could be arrested for making that image, and bailed until a later time. What if you are a teacher? Or a nurse? Or run a kids home? You have to tell your safe guard lead. Are you then suspended? What happens when you explain to people that you didn't ASK for this, it just happened. Do you think people will believe you? That is a giant mistake and you are going the right thing Co operating? That's literally what the actual criminals say when people find out before it's fine to court.

A police officer was charged with having made illegal images after a family member forwarded them directly to "investigate " instead of reporting it officially. They were convicted of it if I remember rightly.

What this country needs is a distinction between

-Receiving images unsolicited and reporting it ( with protection)

-Receiving images and not reporting it/just deleting them

-Receiving images and keeping them

-Receiving images and forwarding them

-Producing and distributing images to others.

In Mumsnet there is such a lack of understanding that people think the bottom 4 of these are exactly the same crime and as equally as bad and they are not. A person that documents horrific child abused and sends these to other people causes first degree harm. This is not the same level as somebody sending you an image and you deleting it and choosing not to report it as you fear the repercussions and disruption to your life.

An image can also be a drawing. An image of anime human /dog anthropomorphised hybrids having sex can be classed as bestiality despite it being a clear cartoon. Anime figures wearing school uniforms automatically qualify it as child abuse images due to the significance of the uniform indicating age. People, especially teens, don't realise this.

People also don't realise that this behaviour is an ever worsening epidemic and the police and agencies can't even scratch the surface. It's all linked to not just paedophilia but porn addiction. Like all addictions they start off innocently enough and escalate horrifically. Not all people that are arrested for this stuff are true paedophiles, a huge chunk are just over entitled opportunistic vultures that think they can get away with it and need more extreme stuff to get off too.

Weren't they found on the other blokes phone? He could well have deleted it, and would have to be extremely stupid not to (even more stupid than chatting with this man in the first place)

Weren't they found on the other blokes phone? He could well have deleted it, and would have to be extremely stupid not to (even more stupid than chatting with this man in the first place)

He didn't delete them, they were found on his phone.

@HonestMistake great name.

There are specific defences available anyway

Unsolicited photographs
This defence that the photographs were unsolicited (s. 160(2)(c) CJA 1988) applies to s160(1) CJA 1988only. The defendant has a legal defence if they can prove that the photograph in question was unsolicited and that they did not keep it for an unreasonable time (R v Collier [2005] 1 Cr. App. R. 9). The issue of reasonableness is a matter for the jury to decide on the facts of any particular case.

www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/indecent-and-prohibited-images-children

@HonestMistake great name.

There are specific defences available anyway

Unsolicited photographs
This defence that the photographs were unsolicited (s. 160(2)(c) CJA 1988) applies to s160(1) CJA 1988only. The defendant has a legal defence if they can prove that the photograph in question was unsolicited and that they did not keep it for an unreasonable time (R v Collier [2005] 1 Cr. App. R. 9). The issue of reasonableness is a matter for the jury to decide on the facts of any particular case.

www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/indecent-and-prohibited-images-children

“Mistakes” don’t happen to normal people without a sexual interest in children. Those people, who receive such an image will report it, be disgusted and not be prosecuted.

Don’t pretend you can accidentally receive an abundance of child porngraphy just going about your normal, honest life.

As a pp said if you think the law is too broad then find an example of someone who was prosecuted in the circumstances I spoke about in my first paragraph - I can guarantee you won’t.

Not necessarily. Huw Edwards absolutely deserves whatever's coming to him.

The over whelming majority of men who are actually prosecuted under this law also had it coming.

But the law as written does allow people to be guilty without having done anything morally wrong. They're dependant on the judgement and discretion of the police, the CPS and potentially a jury. I'm basically fine with that because I do trust these institutions' discretion in this context, and am aware that if they started prosecuting in those circumstances they'd have no time to do anything else.

But I can see that if you have less faith you might want to put in a specific defence for people who've done literally nothing wrong, and have reported illegal material to the authorities at the first opportunity.

And if there were such a defence then maybe the bastards who do get prosecuted would be less able to muddy the water with the possibility that they'd actually done nothing wrong and just recieved an unsolicited photo out of the blue.

ETA by "overwhelming majority" I'm not ruling out the possibility that 100% of it had it coming - but mistakes do happen.

Yes those calling for a change in the law really mean that they’d like to change the law so that nice men also happen to be peadophiles don’t get prosecuted. Because it would sit much better with people to believe it can’t possibly be true than face up to the fact that purportedly nice and admiral people can also be monsters behind closed doors.

This is exactly the kind of attitudes that offenders hide behind and stops prosecution and hides abuse.

There was an incident of a very senior police officer who had been sent an inappropriate WhatsApp message from her sister, never opened it, but ended up losing her job over it. It's a minefield. Edwards opened the images, was asked if they were too young and responded that he didn't want young images. He's an absolute fool and I am still flabbergasted that such an excellent journalist who seemed so genuine was anything but. I suppose the fact that in the previous part of his fall from grace, the young man and the photos, is similarly weird. Paying £30,000+ for photos of this man, why not buy a gay magazine!?! Bit cheaper.

The apologists are acting like the person recieving the pictures is a passive recipient. They chatted online to another person for over a year viewing 100s of photos.

@BonifaceBonanza i would love you to reference even one single precedent in law where an individual was sent an indecent image, having had nothing to do with the the person, the conversation, or other CP and was prosecuted for receiving the image.

There was an incident of a very senior police officer who had been sent an inappropriate WhatsApp message from her sister, never opened it, but ended up losing her job over it. It's a minefield. Edwards opened the images, was asked if they were too young and responded that he didn't want young images. He's an absolute fool and I am still flabbergasted that such an excellent journalist who seemed so genuine was anything but. I suppose the fact that in the previous part of his fall from grace, the young man and the photos, is similarly weird. Paying £30,000+ for photos of this man, why not buy a gay magazine!?! Bit cheaper.