14-Year-Old Boy Placed On Police Register After Sending Naked Picture To Classmate

Ewan Palmer reports: A teenage boy in the UK has had a crime of making and distributing indecent images recorded against him after he sent a naked picture of himself to one of his female classmates. The 14-year-old was not formally arrested after he sent the explicit image to a girl of the same age via Snapchat. The police file against the boy will now remain active for 10 years, meaning any future employer conducting an advanced Criminal Records Bureau check will be aware of the incident. However, it is not clear whether a police file was recorded for the girl who saved and shared the image. Under new legislation, if she had been over 18, the girl could have been convicted under the so called 'revenge porn' law in the UK.

Comments

Won't someone think of hurting the children??

[gurps_npc]

Please? I mean here are two perfectly innocent young children just BEGGING to be thrown to the judicial wolves, torn apart, consumed, and eaten by ridiculous laws that pretend to protect them.

Re:Won't someone think of hurting the children??

[Intrepid imaginaut]

I would have thought it was common sense for how appropriate it is to be sending naked pictures of oneself, even at the age of 14.

A fourteen year old is a child by every definition of the word. We don't allow them to vote, drink alcohol, or drive. So tell me, in what benighted universe are we to hold them responsible for their sexual foibles at a time when they're just entering puberty, usually under the tutelage of adults too terrified of their own sexuality to give them useful advice?

And sign in if you want a response next time, Obfuscant.

Re:Won't someone think of hurting the children??

[adolf]

Huh?

1. We don't know that it was unsolicited.

2. We don't know that he's not innocent or normal. I remember when I was a normal-ish 14-year-old boy. I can't honestly say that my mentality at that time would have precluded me sending such pictures in such a way because the technology didn't exist, but I can say that as an adult I've never felt compelled to photograph my bits for sharing with others. But again, at 14: Maybe, if I had the tools.

3. We don't know her intent in distribution. I think that a teenaged girl would likely be all giggles about the thing, without malicious intent. (Have you met a teenaged girl? My own is 14.)

4. We don't know why he chose Snapchat. Perhaps simply because it was convenient, and he was simply familiar with the interface -- we cannot assume, based on what we know, that it was a deliberate decision driven by Snapchat's default nature of deleting things after a short time.

5. We don't know that she's some crypto-savvy script kiddie who went through extensive measures to bypass Snapchat's security. For all we know she did the obvious and simplest thing: She used one handheld device to take a photograph of an image on another handheld device. (The analog hole does not exclude Snapchat.)

That normal, innocent kids might be smart and clever does not mean that their every motivation is evil. Furthermore, normal, innocent kids making unwise decisions is a hallmark of normal, innocent kids: They're kids, FFS.

Re: Won't someone think of hurting the children??

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother? Power is power. Destroy one to scare and control one hundred

FTFY

Re:Won't someone think of hurting the children??

[Anonymous Coward]

Working at a maximum security jail that housed young offenders, i can tell you that the youth of today mature much faster maybe due to faster access to information and all that hormone drug ridden food they eat. some of these 14 year olds had the bodies of men ! They were also facing serious charges like murder, assault, rape. Decisions they made were not the same as regular 14 year olds. One kid was in for his 2nd charge of murder. The first time he killed his sister. 2nd time he shot his grandfather. another kid was there because he raped a fellow cellmate...it was his third time. And these "kids" will have their records cleaned after they get out as "young offenders". The only thing that stops them is when they end up in the adult system. Age shouldnt be any reason to excuse criminal actions. Read about the murder of James Bulger and you will think differently about "kids". His murderers were only 10 years old.

Re:Won't someone think of hurting the children??

[Areyoukiddingme]

I'm sorry, but fourteen year olds are not "children" by every definition...

Oh yes they fucking are.

No they're not. By the biological definition, once a specimen has reached sexual maturity, it is an adult. Is a 14 year old human physically mature? No. Is a 14 year old human emotionally mature? No. Is a 14 year old human sexually mature? Hell yes. Effectively every 14 year old girl and damn near all of the 14 year old boys are capable of doing their part of what the species does to make more of their species.

So no, 14 year olds are not children by every definition. We would be better off if we acknowledged that and made allowances for it.

The creation of the category "teenager" should have filled that bill, but too many societies on Earth are positively schizophrenic about acknowledging the sexual realities of being a teenager. On the one hand, they're wishing with all their might that teenagers are still children—asexual, trusting, obedient, happy almost by default—and on the other, commercial advertising and entertainment sexually flaunts teenage bodies as the very peak of desirability and perfection, and it's all downhill after that. The reality is complicated, but it does include sex and sexual things.

So here we have a government getting all up in arms about a naked 14 year old boy. Do they think this is the first time in history a teenage girl saw a naked teenage boy unsolicited? Are they stupid? Teenage boys have been flashing teenage girls and vice versa since the dawn of time, when some near-monkey first said, "Shit, it's cold out here. I'ma wrap this bear skin around my naked ass." A week later, a near-monkey girl flipped up her skirt and mooned a boy, and a near-monkey boy dropped his drawers and waggled his penis at a girl, and it's been happening ever since. The use of the precious cell phone is fucking irrelevant, and the police register is fucking moronic. He didn't do a damn thing that hadn't been done before, and civilization didn't fall because of it, then or now.

Re:Won't someone think of hurting the children??

[SuricouRaven]

From the age of 16-18, it is legal to have sex in the UK, but not to look at it. Presumably they are supposed to keep their eyes closed.

Makes sense

[theCzechGuy]

Boy sends a naked picture to a girl, gets a record. She then sends the picture to host of other people with the clear intent to hurt the boy, but that's fine. How was he distributing the picture and she wasn't? That's just... exactly how the world works. Carry on.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy sends a naked picture to a girl, gets a record. She then sends the picture to host of other people with the clear intent to hurt the boy, but that's fine. How was he distributing the picture and she wasn't? That's just... exactly how the world works. Carry on.

Well to punish the girl might dissuade her from working in technology. We can't have that now can we?

Not a Sex Offender's Register

[mentil]

I RTFA (I know)
He wasn't placed on a sex offender's register (last I heard, the UK declined to implement one), rather a registry of people who have had legal complaints filed with the police agency. Someone (probably a tip from whatever social network the picture was shared on) notified the police about it, and a public record was automatically made about that notification. The police didn't press charges, as they claim to be lenient about teen sexting; an actual modification to the law would be a better option than selective enforcement, however. A bigger problem is that a publicly-searchable registry exists of people who have been accused of a crime, even if the police thought there wasn't enough of a case/cause to arrest or prosecute them. Most people never get called on their 3 felonies per day, so it can be used to single out people no more guilty than typical.