Can anyone advise re legal/criminal matter please?

[daffsntulips]

I am in big shock as someone we thought to be a good family friend has been charged with taking indecent images/pictures of children.

With this charge does it mean that the children were actually present?

Yes that's very likely or possibly they took them via web cam.
Hope you are ok. If you have your own kids & are worried then have a chat with your local children social care team for support & advice.

Was he changed with "taking" or "making" an indecent photograph? If it's "making", that doesn't necessarily mean taking photos of a child who is present. If someone downloads an image from the internet, that's also classed as making an indecent photograph because by downloading they are making a copy of the image. Printing an image stored on the computer would also count as making a photograph, because again it's creating another copy.

Here's some info from the CPS, if that helps: www.cps.gov.uk/legal/h_to_k/indecent_photographs_of_children/#a03

Not necessarily. Without more details it is impossible to tell. He could, for example, have Photoshopped photos of children to make them indecent.

It is, of course, not necessarily the case that he is guilty. Indeed, the images may not even be indecent. It is rare but it is not unknown for an over zealous police officer to class photos as category C (the lowest category of indecent images) when they are entirely innocent.

Thank you for your replies, I don't want to say anything that will identify us. But what you have said does help.
I'm not sure whether it was making or taking,