Eight in 10 convicted in UK over child abuse images avoid prison, NCA says
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National Crime Agency calls for tougher sentencing and a new offence of running abuse websites.
By Vikram Dodd, Police and crime correspondent
Eight out of 10 people in the UK caught with images of children being sexually abused avoid going to jail, the head of the National Crime Agency has revealed.
Graeme Biggar, the director general of the NCA, said some had been caught with thousands of images but avoided imprisonment, and others had been given rehabilitation orders and suspended sentences and then reoffended.
In a media briefing, the NCA called for tougher sentences of imprisonment.
It also said a decision by Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram, to introduce end-to-end encryption meant thousands of referrals received from the company about people who may pose a threat to children could be lost.
Biggar said it was ‘striking’ that so many people convicted of having child abuse images were judged by the courts not to merit an immediate prison sentence.
‘One thing that does dis...
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