DBS Case Study – 16 year old prevented from being barred following conviction for indecent images
Many young boys stray into ill-advised regions of the internet where they are exposed to illegal sexual images of children. The adults who operate in these regions do not discriminate on the severity and depravity of the images they share with others, leading to these boys receiving the highest category of illegal images. Once received, the offence is complete regardless of the original motives.
Background:
The 16-year-old student had been lonely and isolated in a new school. His growing sexual awareness led him to search out images of girls his own age on the internet. This led to him receiving images of children as young as 12 years old. He was convicted of several offences related to possessing and sharing these images.
Our Approach:
Mark Hopwell was engaged to prepare the representations to the DBS within the 8-week allotted deadline. Mark considered all the DBS documents and took full, detailed instructions from the student about the context of his offending, including every aspect of his internet use, his mental state at the time, his motivations and intentions, and the path he had taken since the offences were committed.
Our approach was to examine the evidence carefully and determine that although the offending had been deliberate and over a prolonged period, it had been sporadic in nature, and the number of images accessed was relatively small for this reason. We were also able to show that the motivation had been only to find age-appropriate material and not the wide range of images that had been shared with him. The sharing he did with others was through a level of naivete and immaturity that meant he misunderstood the ramifications of his actions, believing he was simply following the rules of the website.
Outcome:
The DBS needed to look beyond the offending and the convictions to see the motivations and actions of the child himself. Mark was able to persuade the DBS that the student held no inappropriate sexual interest in children that went beyond normal age-appropriate feelings. His error was to use the internet to satisfy those sexual feelings.
In addition, Mark successfully arranged for an independent risk assessment to be carried out that corroborated that view.
Even though there were multiple convictions, the DBS can only place someone on the barred lists if it is appropriate to do so in all the circumstances. Mark’s arguments through his representations made it very difficult for the DBS to justify barring the student. As a result, the student was not placed on any barred list. The student has now continued his studies towards the career he is aiming for.
