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Sexting - 1054/19

Date Responded 17 September 2019

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

I am interested to find out how many ‘sexting’ cases involving young children were investigated by your force over the relevant period.

Please could you provide a breakdown of cases where the suspect is a child under the age of 14 for the following offences:

- Take/ make/ distribute Indecent Photographs Or Pseudo-Photographs Of Children;

- Possession of indecent photo or pseudo images of a child;

- Possessing prohibited images of children.

For each case, please provide the age of the suspect, the offence type (including any additional detail on the incident) and also the outcome of the case (e.g. police caution or Outcome 21).

Please provide this data for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019 up to 19 August 2019.

In Response:

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development Department of Northumbria Police.  I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.

I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

Please note that all crimes recorded between 1 January 2017 and 19 August 2019 were searched for the below offence codes:

  • 086/02 Take, permit to be taken or to make distribute or publish indecent photographs or pseudo - photographs of children
  • 086/10 Possession of an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph
  • 086/15 Possessing prohibited images of children

Any suspects under the age of 14 at the time the crime was committed were identified and their age along with the outcome of the crime are included.                                                                                                                        

Please note that the information supplied below has been presented in such a way as to avoid the application of relevant exemptions under the act and will not be broken down any further.

Offence Type

2017

2018

2019

Take, permit to be taken or to make distribute or publish indecent photographs or pseudo - photographs of children

2

2

1

Possession of an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph

0

0

0

Possessing prohibited images of children

0

0

0

 

All suspects were aged between 11 and 13.

 

Outcome Of Case

2017

2018

2019

Caution youth

    

1

Community Resolution

1

    

Not in Public Interest (Police)

  

1

  

Victim does not support police action

1

    

YOT Triage

 

1

 

 

                                                                                                                            

Disclaimer

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

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