Child Sexting (487A/23)
Request
1. How many individuals under the age of 18 have been dealt with by means of ‘Outcome 21’ (per the Home Office counting rules) for any offence relating to consensual child sexting in:
a. 2016
b. 2017
c. 2018
2. How many individuals under the age of 18 have been deal with by means of a simple or conditional caution for any offence relating to consensual child sexting in:
a. 2016
b. 2017
c. 2018
3. How many individuals under the age of 18 have been charged with any offence relating to consensual child sexting in:
a. 2016
b. 2017
c. 2018
For clarity, references above to ‘consensual child sexting’ refer to any offence under s.1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978 or s.160 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 committed (or alleged against) a child where the subject of the indecent image made, distributed or possessed consents to the offence and is also a child. At the material times, such offences were ‘counted’ under Home Office Counting Rules as offences 86/02 and 86/10.
Response
Please find attached (487A_23_attachment.pdf).
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.