Police Cannot Use Law That Makes Grooming a Crime

By Fiona Hamilton
The Times
March 3, 2017

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-cannot-use-law-that-makes-grooming-a-crime-z7spdw2fq?shareToken=a42bc8ea0a757eb40cbd6aa906037cc9

Sexual communication with a child was made an offence by the government

Police officers have been unable to use a new law to catch paedophiles because of lengthy government delays, it has emerged.

The Ministry of Justice is facing questions about why it has failed for two years to implement measures intended to prevent child grooming, even though the number of cases has more than tripled in recent years.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children said that the delays were a “disgrace” and called on ministers urgently to enact the law.

Sexual predators can currently only be arrested and charged if they meet a child after grooming them. However, a law was passed in March 2015 that would make it illegal for an adult to send a sexual communication to a child, either over the phone or via the internet.

The law is contained in section 67 of the Serious Crime Act but it is awaiting the “commencement order” that is needed before police forces can start using it. The NSPCC said that in the meantime children are being put at risk and pointed to a sharp rise in the number of abusers meeting children they have groomed.

Police recorded 1,122 offences of meeting a child after sexual grooming in the year to September 2016, up from 345 in 2010-11, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

The charity questioned why the government was delaying implementation of a law that would allow police to stop sexual predators at an earlier stage. It had been backed personally by David Cameron.

Peter Wanless, the NSPCC’s chief executive, said: “It is an utter disgrace that more and more sexual predators are meeting children after grooming them — but they cannot be arrested for grooming. Police are having to rely on other offences, which means that they can’t intervene until a later stage in the abuse, which in some tragic cases is too late.”

A government spokeswoman said: “Sexual communication with a child is abhorrent, which is why the government legislated to make it a specific offence. We remain committed to commencing this law as soon as possible.”

It follows controversy over comments in The Times by Simon Bailey, who takes the lead on child protection for the National Police Chiefs Council. He said sex offenders who viewed indecent images should not be jailed if they were assessed as posing no physical threat to children. He said police needed to focus on the most dangerous offenders.

• Lawyers are being investigated over claims that they are delaying the deportation of Britain’s most notorious sex groomers. Four members of the Rochdale gang face serving their time in Pakistan but the Labour MP Simon Danczuk said the Nottingham law firm Burton & Burton was stalling the case. The Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed that an inquiry had begun.