Violence against Women and Girls Crime report contents

As outlined in the child abuse section of this report, the CPS supported the introduction of legislation
to criminalise sexualised-messaging between adults and children. The offence of ‘Sexual
Communications with a Child’ received Royal Assent on 3 March 2015 but has no commencement
date at publication of this report.
The CPS, police and judiciary jointly agreed to adopt nationally a new approach to prosecuting a
select number of online image offenders, from 1 April 2016. The approach uses the Child Abuse
Image Database (CAID) to enable low risk cases to be progressed more quickly, meaning more
offenders can be prosecuted in shorter time. Revised CPS guidance on Indecent Images of Children
was published in July 2016.
Exploitation of vulnerable victims
A police officer targeted seven domestic abuse victims over three years, exploiting their
vulnerability. He sent indecent images and photographs and engaged in sexual activity with
three of the victims. One victim received over 900 text messages in 13 months. He was
sentenced to four years’ imprisonment.
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