Mr J

In 2015, Mr J (then aged 15) pleaded guilty in the Youth Court to offences of downloading and possessing indecent images of children. He received a six-month referral order and was ordered to pay £100 in costs.

Mr J had told his parents about the images who, in turn, reported the matter to the police. Mr J initially told the police that he had downloaded the images whilst looking for legal pornography. However, during a later interview, he said that he had been directed to the images by a third party in an online chatroom.

The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in February 2017.

During review, the CCRC considered there was reasonable cause to suspect that Mr J’s offending arose as a direct consequence of being a victim of online child sexual exploitation.

Consequently, the CCRC took the view that the interests of justice and the Crown’s duty to act in the best interest of the child dictated that Mr J’s potential victim status should have been properly investigated and considered by the prosecutor before deciding to charge Mr J for these offences.

There was therefore a real possibility the Crown Court would find that the prosecution amounted to an abuse of process.

In addition, there was new evidence to the effect that Mr J was not advised of the defences to the charges he had available to him, and there was a real possibility those defences would have succeeded.

The CCRC concluded that there was a real possibility the Crown Court would vacate Mr J’s guilty pleas and stay any re-prosecution as an abuse of process.

The CCRC referred the conviction in March 2022.