If you are suspected or charged with a criminal offence, like inciting, grooming and, or, meeting children, you need to act quickly.
This type of offence usually involves the use of the internet. The growth of the internet over recent years has changed the way people communicate. Whilst it is easier to communicate, the quality of the communication is often degraded as people believe they become ‘anonymous’ and their alter egos take over from reality. Communicating with others in chatrooms may start innocently, but conversations and behaviour may evolve in a way that was not initially intended. This may easily reach the stage where criminal offences have taken place.
Offences of inciting or grooming may begin as a result of an undercover police ‘sting’ where a police officer pretends to be a child in a chatroom or other social media platform. The issue of entrapment will arise where an undercover police officer has appeared to encourage the behaviour which is being prosecuted.
For more information on sting operations and entrapment please refer to our section on police sting operations.
Cases may arise as a result of a suspicious parents or social workers who then contact the police, or as a result of a warning from a compromised website.
Relationships between children of a similar age are being misinterpreted by police and classed as a ‘grooming’ offence. Young people operating in compromised environments may be victims of grooming and, without realising it, be facilitating the sexual grooming of other young people on behalf of others. There may be a fine line between being a groomer and a victim, which is not understood by the police or the prosecution. These cases are never as straightforward as they seem.
The evidence
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Texts and emails. The written word can be misinterpreted. How often have you received or sent a text or email that has been misinterpreted? The absence of a comma can easily change the meaning of a sentence. The prosecution is likely to read the content in a way that supports the complainant. However, the defendant’s version of what the text or email actually means should be taken into account.
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Chatroom, video and social media conversations. The police will likely have seized the defendant’s computers. It should not be assumed that the accused person is responsible for the communication unless sole access to the computer has been admitted already, or unless forensic evidence points to and identifies a single user. The defence may also wish to forensically examine the computer.
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Gifts given to young people, especially to those on local authority care, such as cigarettes, alcohol and money are often viewed by the police as a sign of grooming.
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Arranging offences – fantasy and real intent. When the police or prosecution present evidence of an arrangement to meet, defence solicitors will need to consider whether there is in fact evidence of an arrangement and, if there is, whether the communication was fantasy with no real intent to meet (and that the meeting would never would have happened).
The Law
Grooming is not an offence on its own. To be guilty, a defendant must have met or communicated with a child on at least two occasions, and then travelled with the intention of meeting the child to commit a sexual offence, typically sexual assault or rape. The initial two or more contacts need not have been sexual, but the intention when travelling to meet the child must be sexual. The meeting itself need not take place and therefore travelling to a meeting is enough.
Surprisingly, the child need not even exist, as long as the defendant thinks he or she does exist. This allows for the possibility of a police ‘sting’. Please also refer to our section on police sting operations.