Celebrity "pedophilia" is again making headlines this summer, causing considerable embarrassment and a sense of deja-vu for a public-broadcasting institution.

When the news first broke, the British public were apparently shocked to hear their 'national treasure', BBC bigwig, and royal reporter Huw Edwards apparently had some kind of interest in teenagers. Never mind that he had not been accused of sexual interaction with anyone under the local age of consent (16). Having any sexual interest in minors, under the age of 18, was itself a cardinal sin.

The star presenter, hand-picked to announce the death of the Queen, found his reputation in tatters following the July 2023 announcement that he had paid a 17 year-old male a large sum of money to send 'images'. If the images were 'indecent' - and this legal 'definition' has an extremely broad and subjective scope - they would be illegal under the UK's hodgepodge of inconsistent laws that set the age of consent at 16, but sometimes 18, and PIM (prohibited images of minors) laws at a firm 18.

The Sun's hypocrisy

The Sun newspaper, that hounded Huw Edwards for his interest in teenage males, photographed 16 year olds nude in the 80s, joking about one of them being expelled from school as a consequence.

Low-rent tabloid The Sun broke the news, claiming that “the well-known presenter is accused of giving the teen more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images”. The police had refused to get involved, stating that no criminality was found, and questions were raised as to whether The Sun was justified in stoking up anger over a man paying another man for sexual favors. In true tabloid fashion, the newspaper went backwards and forwards with critics defending its actions, but retreated somewhat from the backlash by claiming that it had made no accusation of criminality. Despite its initial hubris, the junk tabloid was left with its tail firmly between its legs.

Fast forward to this summer, and Huw Edwards has been charged and convicted, this time with "making indecent images of children". This law was originally supposed to apply to people producing images for distribution, but was later inexplicably used to prosecute people who simply 'made a copy on their computer screen'. Edwards had received the illegal images from an online acquaintance via WhatsApp. Most of the images were of adults, presumably men. A small number were of teenage boys, and only two of the many images depicted a very young child. When asked if he wanted more, Edwards asked his acquaintance to not send any more underage material. Edwards' mistake, it seems, was being a 60 year old man who didn't think to immediately wipe the underage material, although under the offense of 'making', any attempt at deletion may already have been too late.

The Sun reacted joyously to the the news that Edwards had pled guilty to a 'child porn' crime, and responded with a flood of stories labeling him a monster. Stories include titles such as I was 17 and a schoolboy when Huw Edwards sent me kisses and HUW THE GROOMER. The stories painted Edwards as a sinister villain who groomed vulnerable older teens and young men, describing a 17 year-old's 'lucky' escape from falling under the star's influence.

This would all be par for the course these days, but The Sun's behavior in the 80s, while under the same ultimate ownership of Rupert Murdoch, leaves it in no position to speak from such a pedestal. The Sun, in 1983, groomed (according to its own standards) Samantha Fox by having her strip naked for an almost 40 year-old man, to take photos for its infamous page 3 at the age of 16, a year younger than the boys it now claims to be so awfully concerned about. The famous headline read "Sam, 16, Quits A-Levels for Ooh-Levels". The girl was kicked out of school for appearing topless in The Sun, and the newspaper's reaction was to joke "Head sees red over his topless pupil", adding "SIZZLING schoolgirl Samantha Fox has quit her A-level studies because of a rumpus over a saucy picture."

We can only imagine how the newspaper would react to anyone else having done what it did, today. Admittedly, in 1983, photos of naked 16 year olds were not actually illegal, only becoming so in 2003. However, if we are going to take The Sun's tone toward middle-aged men interacting sexually with 16 and 17 year olds, Mr Murdoch and his underlings ought to be hounded by the very mob they raised for their grooming and predatory behavior. "It was a different time" hardly seems like a defense from a newspaper whose US cousin expressed outrage over a priest who historically took advantage of 16 year old girls.

Legal horror

If an innocent person is sent (or stumbles across) indecent images of children, the burden is on them to prove their innocence. This is surprisingly difficult, and in conflict with the concept of 'innocent until proven guilty'.

An analysis of UK laws, using the Crown Prosecution Service's cited cases as a basis, reveals an alarming picture.

First of all, let's take a look at laws against the possession of indecent images of children.

According the Crown Prosecution Service, citing R v Okoro (2018), as a defining precedent, the following factors are needed to secure a conviction:

• The prosecution must prove that the images are within the accused’s custody or control such that they were capable of accessing them
• They must know that they possess the images
• The accused need not know that the photographs were indecent.

The presiding judge referred to statutory defenses:

(2) Where a person is charged with an offence under subsection (1) above, it shall be a defence for him to prove—

(a) that he had a legitimate reason for having the photograph or pseudo-photograph in his possession; or

(b) that he had not himself seen the photograph or pseudo-photograph and did not know, nor had any cause to suspect, it to be indecent; or

(c) that the photograph or pseudo-photograph was sent to him without any prior request made by him or on his behalf and that he did not keep it for an unreasonable time.

The judge pointed out that:

The Act places the burden of proving this defence upon the defendant. That means he does not have to make you sure of it (which is the criminal law standard of proof), but he does have to satisfy you to the lesser (civil law standard of proof) on the balance of probabilities, namely that it is "more likely than not".

What this boils down to should strike fear into every person subject to the UK's laws on indecent images of children. If somebody sends you a large number of files for whatever reason, and one of those files is indecent, but you didn't check them carefully for anything questionable and then quickly delete, the burden of proof is on you to show that you were unaware of the unlawful content. The defendant is expected to prove a negative.

But surely it can't really be that bad? Would the legal system of a 'developed' country really be that unreasonable? Is "more likely than not" such a difficult standard to meet?

The Crown Prosecution Service, which is responsible for prosecuting those accused of PIM offenses, certainly believes so. When prosecuting cases, prosecutors will demand that a defendant reach the threshold of evidence required for a reverse burden of proof defense. However, when they were ordered by a judge to make copies of 'indecent images of children' for the purposes of a legal defense, they appealed the judge's decision on the grounds that they could theoretically be prosecuted and subject to a reverse burden of proof! They even threatened not to prosecute if required to undertake any actions that would subject them to this standard! They are happy to demand prison for people wrongly accused and unable to meet the threshold of evidence required for innocence, but they are so terrified of being asked to meet it themselves that they will refuse to do their jobs in such circumstances.

What they didn't mention, for reasons that are entirely unclear, is that there is actually no defense to "making" indecent images of children. This is even worse.

If a defendant is found to be in possession of an indecent image, they have the aforementioned defenses of having been sent them without request and not keeping them for an 'unreasonable' time. To be convicted of a possession charge, the defendant needs to have stored the image in a way that they can access it. If a defendant is to be convicted of 'making' an image, there only needs to be forensic evidence of it having been downloaded, received by a messaging service with or without request, or even being displayed by a pop-up on a regular adult site. There is no need to prove that the defendant was able to access it. There is also no statutory defense.

If a person sends you an image that you did not request, and you open it without realizing that it is 'indecent', and then you delete it, should you really be guilty of 'making'?

A summary of Atkins v Director of Public Prosecutions (2001) suggests not. The judges (only whose summary I was able to access) seem to have been extremely lucid, realizing the massive inconsistency:

The court was bound by Bowden: ‘it seems to me problematic enough to construe s.1(1)(a) (an offence to which no defence whatever is available) as encompassing the intentional making of copies. To construe it as creating an absolute offence in the sense contended for by the DPP, i.e. to encompass also the unintentional making of copies, in my judgment would go altogether too far. It would, moreover, as Miss Malcolm points out, represent a striking oddity in our criminal law: a situation where the self-same set of facts involves the commission of two quite distinct offences, possession under s.160 and ‘making’ under s.1(1)(a), no additional ingredient being required for proof of the more serious offence. In short, it is my conclusion that whilst ‘making’ includes intentional copying (Bowden), it does not include unintentional copying.’

This decision came from a higher court whose decisions lower courts are supposed to rely on. However, under the British legal system, it is the responsibility of lower courts to make themselves aware of the decisions of higher courts. This presents a serious problem. A poorly represented person, who has been sent images they did not request, may be unable to defend themselves unless their lawyer mounts an appropriate defense citing Atkins v DPP (2001). While in theory, all lawyers tasked with defending a client against such charges should be aware of the relevant case law, the reality is likely to be quite different, especially for those who cannot afford a specialist lawyer. There remains a very serious risk of a person receiving a life-changing conviction for having some 'evidence' of underage imagery on their devices, whether or not these images were requested or intentionally accessed.

It's also worth asking why there is a statutory defense for the possession of indecent images, but not for making. The offense of making was not intended to cover the ridiculous concept of 'making' a copy of an image on a screen. If it was, the same defenses would 'apply' as to possession of images. The prosecutors in R v Bowden were playing games in their interpretation of the law, desperate to 'put away a pedo', and endangering the freedom of the entirety of the British public in the process. If the statutory defenses for possession were necessary, they were equally if not more necessary to protect those accused of the equivalent yet easier to wrongly accuse offense of 'making', an crime for which anyone who stumbles upon illegal images without advanced knowledge of technology could easily be found guilty.

The British public should be terrified of this threat to their freedom. If someone sends them an indecent image and they are accused, they rely on a specialist lawyer citing Atkins v DPP, otherwise they are guilty of a child sex crime with all the extra-judicial obligations, such as sex offender registration, that entails.

Market forces, MAP-phobia, or lazy police?

The vast majority of indecent images are pirated copies; sharing and viewing these pirated copies is not fueling production, a major reason given for passing these laws.

In a summary of his Pro-Reform framework, Mu's Brian Ribbon argues:

Regardless of the circumstances of production, there is no mechanism by which the simple possession of PIM causes actual harm to children. Supply and demand economics relate to financial transactions, not pirated media. Unless PIM is purchased, an act which our proposal does not seek to decriminalize, the supply and demand argument against PIM possession has no merit.

In 1988, when the possession of indecent images of children was criminalized, the world was a very different place. Back then, finding PIM would require fairly close contact with a producer, and perhaps a financial transaction or trade. It is easy to understand how, based on this, the idea of a consumer 'creating demand' might have come about. In 2024, Mu understands that PIM are now traded on darknet forums where people re-post images and videos that have been in circulation for years. They are pirated repeatedly, with no benefit to the original creator. There is no fueling the market here; people downloading these images are not culpable in the acts that took place ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years ago.

There remains one potential weak point in our argument, that needs to be addressed. It is reported by the media that a small number of people encourage minors to perform sexually in front of a camera by pretending to be another young person. It is also reported that an even smaller number of people record and share these videos. Unfortunately, MAPs familiar with PIM circulation (i.e. discussions freely visible on darknet forums) have confirmed this to be true. Mu agrees that this deception, and especially the sharing of such videos, is wholly unacceptable, even absent any financial motivation. Mindlessly and disproportionately punishing the simple downloading and possession of such material is, however, not a solution.

Mu understands that the platforms on which such videos are recorded are extremely insecure, and believes it would be better to invest already stretched policing resources on tracking the producers, instead of wasting time on people who simply have copies of such videos on their device. Taking the lazy approach, by pretending that the prosecution of those in possession of the material will somehow stop production, may be easier for authorities but is nothing but an excuse for the unwillingness and inability of police to make the effort to find producers.

A look at the laws against AI PIM give lie to the claims that anyone really believes a market is being 'fueled' by those who download PIM. The matter is clearly not one of protecting children, but of moral outrage. More than fifteen years ago, on a now defunct predecessor to Mu, activists collected published responses to the Scottish “consultation on the possession of non-photographic visual depictions of child sex abuse”, which were eventually criminalized in the Coroners and Justice Act (2009). The response to the consultation reveals the reality behind the motivation for such laws (emphasis added):

Joe Grant, of the Scottish Police Federation, argued:

We note the absence of empirical research on this subject, however, we believe that the prohibition of such material and the criminalisation of those in possession of it, is justified. Our view is predicated by the belief that any right minded member of society would find possession of such material abhorrent.

We can find no evidence to suggest that the viewer/reader of such material is any less likely to be sexually aroused or otherwise corrupted from that of “photographic” material. Therefore we are of the view that possession of such material should be treated in the same way as photographic material.

Gordon Mcintosh & Kate Mearns, of the Angus Child Protection Committee, stated:

Clearly any person within an interest in such animated images has demonstrated an inappropriate understanding of the need to be responsible towards the protection of children. It is therefore our view that all images portraying or depicting child sexual abuse should be outlawed. These materials encourage further fantasising and increase the potential for sexual/physical harm to children.

Creating ’stand-alone’ offences would ensure that anyone convicted of a relevant offence could be made subject to a confrontation therapy exploring the real reasons for their behaviour.

A particular concern is, and should continue to be, the reasons for these images being stored on personal computers.

Although computer generated images, cartoons and drawings may not be taken from actual photographs or images of children being abused the intention behind the making of these pictures shows an unnatural interest in the abuse of children. The creators and distributors of these images should be mentioned in the new legislation

Penalties need to be at the level suggested if the seriousness of possession of such materials is to be recognised. A custodial sentence is an appropriate penalty. Offenders should be expected to serve three years - as a result a custodial sentence of a maximum of five or six years should be applied. As noted previously, although it cannot always be proven that real children were initially used in the creation of these materials, the intent and unnatural interest of such material is extremely serious and should be treated as such

Steve Hopton, from Fife Council, said:

We have found that individuals can fuel their abusive fantasies by using images of children in different formats, such as, catalogues and even children’s drawings of non-sexual subjects. It makes complete sense to criminalise the possession, creation and distribution of CGIs, cartoons and any other images designed to explicitly arouse inappropriate sexualised thoughts/feelings towards children. As technology progresses so to must our laws to protect children and to punish abusive behaviours.

The justification that it is not/or may be a “real” child depicted in such an images does not diminish the inappropriate nature of being sexual aroused to an image of a child being abused.

Many perpetrators use the justification of “it was just poses”; “there was no contact/force/sexual activity” to minimise their abusive sexual interest in children.

In the years since these comments were made, such blatantly hateful comments are globally less acceptable within a professional context, but they persist in the UK. Incendiary comments are still made by British 'professionals', and international efforts to criminalize everything 'AI' in relation to children, replete with lies about their intent, reveal that these attitudes persist around the world. Laws against PIM are not about killing a market for the abuse of children, but about putting MAPs, who did not choose their sexual orientation, in prison using any excuse possible. Hunting of people based on their sexual orientation should not be considered acceptable, never mind expanded, in 2024. Feelings are not actions. Fantasies, in and of themselves, cannot cause harm.

However, we still need to address the claim that PIM encourages MAPs to act on their feelings.

Viewing PIM doesn't lead to contact offending

There is no proven causal link between the viewing of PIM and the commission of contact offenses.

Many supporters of the war on PIM argue that the viewing of PIM "fuels the fantasies" of those attracted to children, or somehow creates an attraction to children that did not exist previously. Others believe that prosecuting people in possession of PIM 'catches' people attracted to children, whom advocates think deserve to be locked up even in the absence of any evidence of harmful behavior. A look at the evidence shows they are wrong.

In his expert testimony to Thames Magistrates Court, forensic criminologist and frequently cited court expert Dr. William Thompson - who trained police, probation officers, and social workers - reported:

There is evidence of a correlation between the levels of availability of pornography and rates of contact offending, and the correlation is negative: i.e. an increase in availability of material has been found to lead to a decline in contact offenses, especially against children.

He also argues:

Criminalizing possession and increasing the definition of a minor to 18 years reflected attempts to make law enforcement easier rather prevent a real threat posed by the Internet, and has led to criminalizing groups that pose no threat to minors.

Alarmingly, he explains:

Rather than demonstrate that possession only CPOs posed a serious threat to children, government Ministers have asserted that a link between possession of child pornography exists and has been proven, although the studies cited to justify their policies and reinforce pre-Internet assumptions either offered no evidence that possession only offenders were undetected contact offenders, or proved that the majority were not, or were so flawed that their conclusions were suspect; and, in one case, did not even exist. There is some evidence that the US Department of Justice engineered the study most commonly cited because it did not have the evidence to justify its policies.

There are two major theories for why the use of PIM does not increase the likelihood of contact offending, as explained by Diamond, Jozifkova & Weiss (2011), the lead author having spent much of his career studying paraphilias and the use of pornography:

Issues surrounding child pornography and child sex abuse are probably among the most contentious in the area of sex issues and crime. In this regard we consider instructive our findings for the Czech Republic that have echoed those found in Denmark (Kutchinsky, 1973) and Japan (Diamond & Uchiyama, 1999) that where so-called child-pornography was readily available without restriction the incidence of child sexual abuse was lower than when its availability was restricted. As with adult pornography appearing to substitute for sexual aggression everywhere it has been investigated, we believe the availability of child porn does similarly. We believe this particularly since the findings of Weiss (2002) have shown that a substantial portion of child sex abuse instances seemed to occur, not because of pedophilic interest of the abuser, but because the child was used as a substitute subject.

Other professionals go even further, arguing that in most cases, there is not even a major correlation, never mind a causal link. In a dissertation published in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, PhD candidate Katherine Williams concluded:

It seems reasonable to conclude that, on the evidence presently available, it is not possible even to clearly link child pornography and sexual assaults, much less to prove a causative link. In this context, to control the activity on this ground is not logical. Taylor and Quayle (2003: 80-83) found that child pornography on the internet was extensively used as a means of achieving sexual arousal and as an aid to masturbation: it was therefore actively used in the paedophile's fulfilment of their sexual attraction to children and in their sexual fantasies. This use as a masturbatory aid is not in itself illegal nor is it of itself dangerous to children, though it may be abhorrent. If this were enough to feed and satisfy their sexual desire, then pseudo-images might be seen as having social utility even if most of us would be wholly disgusted by their existence and the use made of them by the paedophile. Kutchinskey's work (1973, 1985) suggests that this is more likely to be the case, so pornography (adult or pseudo-photographs) might actually protect children. The crucial point remains, that there may be no necessary link between child pornography and further abuse of children and certainly no causative link.

Professor of Law & Criminal Justice Melissa Hamilton, writing for the Cardozo Law Review, argued:

"The policy and the initiative rely on a presumption that child pornography consumers are in reality undetected pedophiles and child molesters who are at high risk of sexually abusing children. This article challenges the presumption by comprehensively analyzing certain of the most commonly cited studies that purport to empirically support correlations between child pornography, pedophilia, and child molestation. It also highlights other empirical evidence, as well as some practical considerations, that instead tend to show that most child pornography offenders are at low risk of committing contact sexual offenses. In sum, the concentration on child pornography crimes appears to be a misinformed policy that fails to directly protect real children from harm."

And yet lives are destroyed...

The hunt for people simply viewing or possessing PIM tears families apart, despite the lack of evidence that it protects children from any kind of harm. UK police chiefs see no difference between minor-attraction, viewing PIM, and actively molesting children.

Despite the lack of evidence for the prosecution of online offenders having any benefit to children, either in terms of preventing exploitation for the production of PIM or in the potential future commission of a contact offense, the hunt for those who view PIM continues to intensify. Fueled by the desire to criminalize every possible connection to a sexual interest in children, an inability or lack of willingness to go after actual abusers, and no doubt a greed for funding, advocates march on with their crusade to prosecute people for their private thoughts and fantasies, including images generated entirely by AI.

There have been a number of recent reports in the mainstream press about families whose lives have been turned upside down by the prosecution of men whose only crime has been to access online PIM. Let's look at them.

Amelia's story

First up is an article in The Mirror, crassly titled My paedo husband lived double life like Huw Edwards. The wife in the story, like many, had a very happy marriage ripped apart when her husband was arrested for viewing indecent images of children. According to the article:

They met at a mutual friend's wedding reception in 2010 and Amelia thought she'd found her dream man. "I saw my life with him," she said. "We married in 2013, had plans to start a family and I didn't want to do life with anybody else. He was very attentive and did thoughtful things. He was brilliant at organising time for us, like date nights, holidays, restaurants and flowers."

She goes on to describe the horror of the early morning knock on the door. It apparently took her by surprise, but then she remembered something terrible.

The first thought that flashed into her mind was a strange memory she'd buried deep. "One time we'd spent the afternoon with a friend and her young daughter and I remember saying goodbye and hugging them. My husband hugged everyone but my friend's daughter," Amelia said.

"I said to him as we were leaving, 'Why didn't you give her a hug?' We'd been getting on well all afternoon. And he said, 'I just don't really hug children'. At the time, we didn't have many family or friends with kids, and I just said 'OK' and didn't think anything more of it.

"But as soon as I got The Knock, that comment was the first thing that came into my head. Out of seven years together, that is the only red flag."

The message here is clear. Being attracted to minors and avoiding physical contact with children is apparently something for which a man should be condemned. Upon realizing that her husband was a MAP, despite being committed to not touching children...

Amelia's opinion of her husband "changed straight away" and she realised that her 'perfect' relationship was fake. "We never argued or even bickered and I thought that was bliss at the time. We got on so well and had so much in common," she said.

"Looking back, it was all an act from him. He didn't want to risk us getting into an argument because, in his deluded mind, he always thought that I would somehow piece two and two together and work out his secret."

The article, published in junk tabloid The Mirror, is of course unrelenting in its portrayal of the husband as an evil monster, even going so far as to support the ex-wife's bizarre belief that her husband was putting on an act to deflect away from his attraction to minors. In reality, a very happy marriage between a woman and a responsible MAP was torn apart over the simple viewing of PIM. Will this protect children? It's more likely to have the opposite effect, leaving the man isolated, jobless, suffering from mental health issues, and without an adult sexual partner.

Emily's story

Let's move on to the first of two articles in The Guardian, who seem to be have developed a taste for PIM reporting.

"We had an ordinary marriage. Then I found out my husband had been viewing images of child abuse."

According to Emily:

We got married seven years ago and our son was born four years later. I had postnatal anxiety and my husband went above and beyond to support me and help me get therapy. I felt we had a really strong relationship and we never rowed. The only thing that drove me mad was he came to bed so much later than me; he always said, “I’m just a night owl” and I assumed he was working or watching films. We also had a few issues with our sex life, which I put down to my gynaecological pain. Now I know it wasn’t just me.

The picture is again one of a happy marriage, although there were obviously some tensions caused by the man feeling unable to be honest with his wife due to the stigmatization of MAPs.

Emily recounts the scene of chaos as her home was ripped apart by police over the simple alleged possession of indecent images of children.

They started pulling everything out of our cupboards, searching for old devices and asking me for passwords I couldn’t remember. I felt embarrassed about the pile of laundry on our bedroom floor. But mostly I was just wandering about in shock, muttering, “This can’t be real.”

She adds, yet again, that her MAP husband was considered a very nice man, most likely because he was.

Then, in the middle of the chaos my mum turned up, as she was meant to be babysitting that day. She immediately thought it must be a terrible mistake and kept saying, “Your husband’s a lovely man.”

As with the previous wife of a MAP, she says she felt she'd been lied to. It is common for non-exclusive (and even exclusive MAPs) to get married and try to have a normal life. This is something that some homosexuals in the past felt also compelled to do, with the risk of negative consequences for everyone involved. If not for the intense stigma surrounding minor-attraction, these dishonest marriages wouldn't need to exist. If calm and rational conversations could be had, everybody could be on the same page. Instead we have this:

It was a miserable time: most of our days were spent trying to book him a hotel room for that night, until we found a long-term rental. I had to tell my son’s nursery. I couldn’t eat. Social services visited and I signed myself off work for a month

The court process is horrible for people accused of anything related to minor-attraction. Emily adds:

I’ve been in court a lot, but it’s different when it’s your own family. Seeing him looking so small and pale was awful, and I remember holding my mother-in-law’s hand and shaking.

The man lost his job, the family were forced to move, and they ended up losing £45,000 on legal fees and hotel bills.

The man is interviewed too. He denies being a MAP, but if he is, his final words are alarming:

But I still live in fear of being found out by friends, colleagues or the press. People immediately think you’re a danger. It’s isolating and means I’ve lost friendships; you look at which you can maintain easily, by glossing over the truth, and step away from those that would require honesty.

Society needs to ask itself: if the goal is for MAPs to be grounded and responsible, is this what we want their lives to look like?

Emma's story

Emma recounts a similar story of lives suddenly being torn apart. She tells The Guardian, in a story aptly titled The knock that tears families apart:

the senior officer came in, looked me in the eye and said: ‘I’m so sorry, life is never going to be the same again. The next few months are going to be hell.’ And then they told me they were arresting Ben for accessing indecent images of children. I felt like the world dropped away.

Not only were lives torn apart, but the family were put in danger from vigilantes simply because someone had viewed PIM:

The female officer told her: “Don’t even tell close friends or family about this. There might be vigilante behaviour such as spray-painting your property.”

Not only that, but the freedom of their children was also threatened:

she was told: “Do not tell people. Your children might find they aren’t invited to playdates any more. Other mothers may question whether their children were safe under your care.”

We learn just how common this is, despite the lack of evidence showing that cracking down on possession of PIM is in any way helpful:

Around 850 people, mainly men, are arrested each month in England and Wales for downloading indecent images or grooming children online. In 2010 there were only 407 arrests across the entire year; since then there has been a staggering 25-fold rise that threatens to overwhelm UK police capacity.

Expert commentary

The article in The Guardian illustrates that the harm to families, not just MAPs, is not lost on commentators:

Rachel Armitage, professor of criminology at the University of Huddersfield, has studied the experiences of non-offending partners of men arrested for online child abuse crimes. Based on her research into “the knock”, Armitage says: “We believe there are around 300 families with children going through it each month in England and Wales. That’s 10 every day.”

The horror continues:

Armitage’s research found that, of 150 family members who have been through the knock, about 69% have severe PTSD. The emotional fallout is often exacerbated by the isolation and lack of support that follows. “Their phones have been taken, so they are unable to contact anyone for help, and in just a few hours, for some, they have become a single parent,” Armitage says. “They are in total shock, but they are told not to talk about it.”

While we don't want to claim that all police officers are soulless - and other articles suggest a level of empathy - it's clear that there are cases where the police have absolutely zero concern about the wellbeing of children. The story of another woman in Emma's article goes:

“My daughter was here at the time of the knock and that was horrendous. She was crying, she was making noises like a wounded animal. There were no pleasantries. The police just said, ‘Right, what devices have you got?’ That sort of thing. My daughter was being sick and there was no recognition of, ‘My God, this is so difficult for you.’”

Police commentary

Comments by law enforcement, cited in the same Guardian article as Emma's Story, and in a BBC Interview, include:

I don’t see a distinction between abusing children and watching that abuse

• Ian Critchley, National Police Chiefs’ Council (Lead Child Protection Officer, 2024)

Anyone who is having inappropriate thoughts about children, or anyone who believes a family member may be, should seek help from Stop It Now!, otherwise they should expect a visit from police officers.

• Simon Bailey, National Police Chiefs’ Council (Lead Child Protection Officer, 2021)

It is apparent from these quotes that actually harming children is not what bothers police chiefs the most. Instead, it is the sexual interest in children, an immutable characteristic, that seems to bother them most.

Firstly, in response to Ian Critchley's shocking statement, it is necessary to consider the following. Claiming that abusing children is no different to viewing online pornography sends a very dangerous message to the small number of MAPs who may be vulnerable to such commentary, implying that if they simply view PIM, there is no moral bridge to gap between what they're doing now and abusing a child. For the small percentage of weak MAPs, easily influenced by others, there is a risk that such messages will encourage them to abuse children. Ian Critchley, if he truly stands behind such a ridiculous statement, appears not to care about this.

Simon Bailey's comment is equally ill-advised: it is not illegal to be attracted to children, and there is no way of 'making someone attracted to adults'. Instead of threatening MAPs with arrest simply for existing, law enforcement authorities should focus on their actual duties, not making threats to law-abiding citizens. A better way to protect children, instead of kicking down the doors of random people, would be to support destigmatization efforts and access to mental health support. Simon Bailey, in actively dissuading this by threatening people with arrest simply for being attracted to children, is putting MAPs, their families, and children at risk of harm with aggressive and hateful messaging that encourages MAPs to be secretive and not seek mental health support even if they want and need it.

Huw Edwards

Destroying another media figurehead over an interest in teenage males is absurd. We are left asking why the police and CPS went ahead.

The Prosecution

The police claimed that the arrest of Huw Edwards in relation to PIM was entirely unrelated to the claims published in The Sun a year earlier. Is that true? One would think that prosecuting someone solely because they received illegal images in a chat room where they explicitly asked not to be sent illegal images would be unjust, especially when this chat room was the only place where such images were found. There are two possible explanations for the prosecution of Huw Edwards, and neither of them are good.

Explanation 1: Huw Edwards was prosecuted because of claims by a notorious tabloid newspaper. After not taking the allegations seriously before The Sun was contacted, police may have been embarrassed about their lack of action due to the fact that - as raised by newspapers such as The Times - sexual images of a 17 year old are illegal despite the age of consent in the UK being 16. It would have been difficult to backtrack after denying an investigation, but then a spurious case gave them a chance of 'redeeming themselves' over their mistake. No doubt, as well, the fear of The Sun catching on to a second case of them ignoring Edwards would have been at the forefront of police and prosecutors' minds. This is not how the law is supposed to work, but might be how it works in practice.

Explanation 2: It really is that easy to be raided and found guilty over alleged PIM offenses in the UK. As discussed in the 'Legal Horror' section of this article, there is no statutory defense to the crime of which Edwards was accused, making prosecution an attractive prospect. Mounting a defense based on case law would require the defendant's lawyer to be aware of the relevant case law, which is far from assured (although one would think Huw Edwards would have access to the best that money could buy). If it really is this easy to be convicted of a child sex crime in the UK, every British citizen should be afraid.

The Lynching

The claims against Huw Edwards are far from damning. He has been convicted of a crime for receiving PIM he didn't request, and he is being called a 'groomer' for being flirty with men over the age of consent. Reading between the lines of the many appalling articles published by The Sun, he was apparently hitting on young adults, which is no crime without harassment. The messages published by The Sun, while a bit off, are not those of someone who ought to be a labeled a sex criminal and hung as a pariah. Instead, his messages to young men are more suggestive of a 'boomer' who is out-of-touch with modern standards of appropriate communication, but far from a threat to young people. When powerful heterosexual men act that way, they're considered gross but not dragged to court. So what was the difference in the case of Huw Edwards? The fact that he liked teenage boys and young men? Perish the thought that The Sun would engage in coded homophobia in 2024.

Edwards will likely not receive a custodial sentence. People convicted of viewing PIM are rightly not considered dangerous enough to be locked away, in Europe at least. Despite this, the man's career is over, and his family will forever have to live with the extreme stigma. A widely respected figure, entrusted with reporting the most important world events for the BBC, has had his life and family utterly destroyed for nothing more than being interested in young males over the age of consent. Who is next?

Questioning the war on PIM

The war on PIM, as it stands, helps nobody.

Mu is against the production of any images that result in a young person (or adult) being harmed. There is no excuse for this. However, we feel it is important to ask questions about the direction the war on PIM is taking. The war on drugs, in many countries, has shifted to focusing on harmful distribution networks and dealers; those with dangerous addictions are being encouraged to seek care, and those who endanger neither themselves nor anyone else are now left alone, or dealt with leniently. A similar approach is needed for PIM.

One of Mu's major focuses is helping MAPs to lead productive lives. We want MAPs to be happy and active members of society. We want exclusive MAPs to have access to harmless sexual outlets, and we want non-exclusive MAPs to have the option of honest and happy marriages with adult men and women. For many MAPs, the war on PIM is ripping this dream apart, destroying the lives of MAPs and their families - spouses and children included - over nothing more than downloading pirated images that could be decades old. MAPs suffering from problematic PIM usage need mental health support instead of prison. For those who are viewing pirated PIM casually and nothing more, why are we still breaking down doors?

In this article, Mu has provided a trove of evidence showing that PIM do not encourage the commission of contact offenses, perhaps even discouraging them, and viewing PIM is not even a great indicator of the future commission of contact offenses. We have shown that senior police and child protection workers, instead of being focused on dealing with rapists and other highly dangerous individuals, are throwing endless resources at those who simply view illegal images because it's easier. We have discussed the risk of completely innocent people being wrongly accused, pointing out how absolutely terrified the CPS is of the lack of defense against such accusations, unwilling to even do its job when the same standards are applied. We have illustrated how thousands upon thousands of families are being ripped apart.

We have to ask, is the war on PIM as it stands now in any way justified?

Mu is an organization that opposes the stigma on Minor-Attracted People, supports their equal access to mental health support, and seeks reforms to laws that target MAPs without sufficiently protecting children and young people.

Please feel free to discuss this article on our forum thread.