Police Cautions
Home Department
Written answers and statements, 3 November 2009
James Brokenshire (- Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornchurch, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have received police cautions for the offences of (a) taking, permitting to be taken, or making distributing or publishing indecent photographs or pseudo- photographs of children and (b) possessing an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child in each of the last five years.
Claire Ward (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Justice; Watford, Labour)
I have been asked to reply.
The number of persons issued with a caution for offences of taking, permitting to be taken, or making, distributing or publishing indecent photographs of children and possession of an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child in England and Wales, from 2003-07 (latest available) is given in the following table.
Data for 2008 are planned for publication at the end of January 2010.
| Number of offenders cautioned( 1, 2) for offences of taking, or possession of, an indecent photograph of a child, England and Wales, 2003-07( 3) | |||||
| Offence description | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
| Take, permit to be taken, or to make, distribute or publish indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children(4) | 239 | 201 | 195 | 168 | 185 |
| Possession of an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child(5) | 205 | 162 | 151 | 147 | 142 |
| (1) From 1 June 2000 the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 came into force nationally and removed the use of cautions for persons under 18 and replaced them with reprimands and warnings. These figures have been included in the totals. (2) The statistics relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been cautioned for two or more offences at the same time, the principal offence is the more serious offence. (3) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. (4) Offences under the Protection of Children Act 1978, section 1 and section 6 as amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, section 84 and Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 S.41(1). (5) Offences under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 sec.160 as amended by the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. Source: Office for Criminal Justice Reform: Evidence and Analysis Unit. | |||||