Teenagers and dick pics

[mauvish]

As we all know, the legal age of consent in the UK is 16; it's 18 for sending or receiving indecent images.

So if an under18 boy send a photo of his (or anyone's) penis to another under18 year old, he's committing an offence.

However, it's also an offence to be in receipt of said images or to have copies of them in any form.

(The same would be true of an under18 girl sending photos of her breasts but somehow it seems less likely that a girl would do that unbidden, whereas boys certainly do).

So what's the position for the recipient of such pics, if they were unwanted and unrequested? That young person suddenly finds themselves with an illegal image of a sexual nature of a child on their phone or laptop. Not their fault -- but where does the law stand? If they make a complaint (as they should do), do they have to surrender their devices as they contain illegal images? If they share the images amongst their friends (which I can well understand, to try to defuse the situation or embarrass the boy who sent them), in law they are guilty of an offence - in practice, what happens?

I'm asking because of adult friend of mine was bombarded with dick pics when she tried OLD, and it got me thinking about wider ramifications and in particular when it happens amongst school children.

I don’t know what the ramifications are, but at the school my sil worked at, if they came across a picture at school, the police would be instantly called.

If that had happened at my daughter's school, then the police would have been there constantly.

She's at Uni now but when she was at secondary school, girls were frequently sent dick picks by boys. Sometimes via a messaging app but sometimes airdropped so they didn't even know who had sent them.

Schools work to the statutory guidance of Keeping Children Safe in Education (KSCIE) which states that the police must be informed in situations as you describe. The police have their own guidance on dealing with sexualised imagery and they do not aim to criminalise children for making stupid mistakes (or for receiving something they didn't ask for). They do aim to make sure such stupid mistakes are not repeated and can take action for repeat offences.
Schools should also consider a referral to children's services for support for both offenders and recipients but in practice it gets bounced back to schools to deal with, either by themselves or within the early help framework.