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Supreme Court to Hold Public Administrative Hearing March 22. Hon. Allie Greenleaf Maldonado to Be Sworn in as First Tribal Citizen on Court of Appeals. SCAO Launches Grant Program for Legal Self-Help Centers. Attorney Alicia Moon Named Michigan Supreme Court General Counsel.
Bookmark. Trisha Goddard’s daughter has told of her drink and drugs spiral that began at age 12 – while her talk show host mum “was off solving everyone else’s problems”. During a 16 ...
May 16, 2020 · May 16, 2020. Michael Zhang. An appeals court has ruled that a 40-year-old man who followed women around with a camera to shoot creepy images of them did not commit any crime because the ...
- Common Elements of The Offences
- Available Offences
- Defences
- Deleted Images
- User-To-User Services and Live-Streaming
- Images and Image Handling
- Streamlined Approach to Low-Risk Offenders
- The Indictment
- Jurisdiction
Indecency
It is for the tribunal to consider the issue of indecency by reference to an objective test, rather than applying their wholly subjective views of the matter (R v Neal [2011] EWCA Crim 461) taking into consideration the age of the child (R v Owen (1988) 86 Cr. App. R. 291). The circumstances in which the photograph came to be taken and motive of the taker are not relevant as it is the photographs of the child which must be indecent, not the defendant’s conduct: R v Graham-Kerr (1989) 88 Cr. A...
Photograph or Pseudo-photograph
The section 7 of the Protection of Children Act 1978 (PCA 1978) definition of photographs and pseudo-photographs applies to offences under section 160 Criminal justice Act 1988 (CJA 1988). Care should be taken to avoid inadvertently charging offences of possession of a prohibited image of a child (section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009) as that offence specifically excludes indecent photographs, or pseudo-photographs of children, as well as tracings or derivatives of photographs and...
Child
A child is a person under 18 (s.7(6) of the PCA) and the age of a child is a finding of fact for the jury to determine. Expert evidence is inadmissible on the subject as it is not a subject requiring the assistance of experts (R v Land [1998] 1 Cr. App. R. 301).
The offences set out below require consent of the DPP to institute proceedings. This can be given by a Crown Prosecutor by virtue of section 1(7) Prosecution of Offences Act 1985. In Walker [2016] EWCA Crim 751it was held that when a Crown Prosecutor decides that there is sufficient evidence to charge, and then identifies the relevant offence and n...
Legitimate Reason
This defence applies to the offences in sections 1(1)(b) and 1(1)(c) PCA 1978 and in section 160 CJA 1988, namely offences of distributing or possessing with a view to distributing indecent images of children and possessing such images. The defendant must prove that they had a legitimate reason for the conduct in question, see section 1(1)(4)(a) PCA 1978 or section 160(2)(a) CJA 1988. "Legitimate reason" is not defined in either Act. In Atkins v DPP; Goodland v DPP [2000] 2 Cr. App. R. 248, w...
Lack of Awareness
This defence applies to the offences in sections 1(1)(b) and 1(1)(c) PCA 1978 and in section 160 CJA 1988, namely offences of distributing or possessing with a view to distributing indecent images of children and possessing such images. The defendant must prove that they had not themselves seen the photograph(s) in question and did not know nor have any cause to suspect them to be indecent (section 1(1)(4)(b) PCA 1978 and section 160(2)(b) CJA 1988).
Marriage and Other Relationships
Section 1A PCA 1978 and section 160A CJA 1988 provide confirmation that a defence is available for photographs of a child aged over 16 where the defendant is married to, or in a civil partnership with, them. The defence does not remove the requirement for consent from the child in question to the photograph: section 1A(4) of the PCA 1978 and section 160A(4) CJA1988.
Whenever a new file is created on a device, the operating system finds available space and allocates that space to the file. Unallocated space (or ‘clusters’) is space that is not allocated to active files within a file system. As possession requires the images to be in the custody or control of the suspect, if images have been deleted, the followi...
Technology used to commit offences may include peer-to-peer file sharing software, social media platforms and messaging applications, on the open or ‘dark’ web. Peer-to-peer software allows “peers” (individual computer systems) to connect to each other over the internet to share files. There are numerous software programs that peers can connect to ...
Child Abuse Image Database (CAID) and police categorisation of images
The Child Abuse Image Database (CAID) was created to assist the police with cataloguing and grading of Indecent Images of Children (IIOC), and victim identification. It is a secure database of IIOC known to UK law enforcement compiled from IIOC seized worldwide, including the UK. CAID uses software to review files found on any seized device and compares them against images held within the database. CAID processes images using 'hash’ values in the image metadata, and once the image has been al...
Viewing the Images
The images in the case, whether computer generated, pseudo images or otherwise, should only be viewed if it is strictly necessary to do so. Viewing of the images otherwise only compounds the original offending. It is important that prosecutors are familiar with the nature of the images in a case and have a proper understanding of what comes within each category but this does not necessitate viewing the images themselves. The decision to charge must be taken by a prosecutor given the requireme...
Provision of images to the defence
An accused should only be permitted access to images in the company of their legal team. Defence solicitors have a duty to defend their clients properly, whilst law enforcement agencies have a duty to ensure that they do not unnecessarily create more indecent images of children or compromise sensitive confidential material (Crown Prosecution Service v LR [2010] EWCA Crim 924: a case in which access was required because age of the child was in issue). Access must be conducted in a way which en...
In certain circumstances, a streamlined approach should be used when prosecuting IIOC offences. Where appropriate this approach allows prosecutors to make charging decisions based on the results of the initial CAID analysis. This does not prevent a later decision to bring additional charges, if appropriate, but is designed where a swift response is...
Ordinarily images should be grouped together in accordance with the three sentencing guideline categories. The indictment should therefore have a maximum of three counts for any type of offence; one count for each of category A, B and C. The SFR should provide a table setting out the total numbers of images in each case, and prosecutors should use ...
The common law provides that there is jurisdiction to try offending which has a substantial connection with England and Wales. Where a substantial degree of the conduct takes place within England and Wales, the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction unless it can be argued, on a reasonable view, that the conduct ought to be dealt with by the...
William "Billy" Mansfield Jr. (born 1956) is an American serial killer, child molester and sex offender, responsible for the murders of five women and girls between 1975 and 1980. He buried the bodies of four victims at the family home in Spring Hill, Florida , and later traveled with his brother to California , where he raped and strangled a Watsonville woman.
Jan 31, 2022 · Police are conducting a forensic review of material linked to one of the UK's most high-profile unsolved murders. Billie-Jo Jenkins, 13, was battered to death at her foster home in Hastings, East ...
Jun 16, 2019 · Gloire Pongo, a 26-year-old man, was arrested at the scene on January 20 and has now been jailed for carrying the knife. Pongo, of Guildford Road, London, pleaded guilty to possessing a bladed article in a public place and was sentenced to nine months behind bars at Chelmsford Crown Court on Wednesday April 10.
