Sexual offences

A disability should not prevent a person's ability to report a crime. Due to the variety of special needs/mental health issues that people experience, forces often provide specialist training for police officers.

When a case is reported involving an individual with special needs or mental health issues, every effort will be made to ensure that they are treated fairly and sensitively and the evidence that they offer is obtained in a manner that allows it to be used in future criminal proceedings. If, for example, communication aids are needed by an individual these will be provided to enable them to make their disclosure. Likewise, the force will endeavour to cater for any other specific needs.

Any person reporting historic sexual abuse to the police will be treated seriously The matter will be thoroughly investigated and historic offences could still result in the conviction of an offender.

The outcome of any such case could be difficult to predict and as such it is important that a victim under these circumstances keeps an open mind. The passage of time, means that evidence may have been lost, although corroboration of early reports, medical and social services records are examples of lines of enquiry that may be pursued. Once the suspect has been interviewed, the case papers will be assessed by the police and if there is sufficient evidence the case may be forwarded to the Procurator Fiscal who will look at:

• the legality of the case;
• the public interest of commencing a prosecution;
• the likely prospect of a conviction;

before they decide whether to take the matter forward. For further support please see the websites in Related Information.

Police Scotland take all reports of rape and sexual assaults seriously regardless of the perceived gravity of the offence and will thoroughly investigate each incident reported to them.

If you are reluctant to report your incident to the police there are support agencies who can help and support you. Rape Crisis Scotland can provide advice and support. Their advocacy project offers access to early support and information to help you feel better informed about the legal process as well as linking into other support services available.

If you do decide to report the incident to the police you will first speak to a uniformed officer who will ask you some general questions (you can ask to speak to an officer of a particular sex if that would be more comfortable for you). You would thereafter be spoken to by specially trained officers. The questions that these officers ask will be more in depth. You can have someone present to support you whilst you are spoken to by the police.

If the incident has recently occurred you may be advised not bath or shower or wash the clothes worn during the incident; this will allow for physical evidence to be gathered more easily.

Do not worry if you feel embarrassed, the officers are specially trained to help you. If you consent, you will undergo a medical examination by trained medical personnel. An officer will be allocated to your case and will keep you regularly updated on its progress.

Whilst there is no legal requirement to report a crime there is a moral duty on every one of us to report to the police anything that you have seen that may be a crime or something that you suspect may be a crime.

Details of any registered sex offenders are kept on a register for the Police only, it is not for public access. If you have any concerns over the activities of a local resident then you should speak to Police Scotland by dialling 101.

Sexting is the sending of sexually explicit messages and pictures via mobile phones. By way of example, sexting may involve the consensual sharing of an image between two adults or two similar aged children in a relationship, to instances of children being exploited, groomed, and bullied into sharing images, which in turn may be shared with peers or adults without their consent.

The law

It is an offence to possess/send/make/take/distribute/show indecent photos of children (person under the age of 18). That means that the child who takes the photo commits an offence as does any person who it gets sent to. This is the case regardless of whether they forward it on to other people and also applies to anyone who simply shows the image to other people.

However, the position of the National Police Chief's Council (NPCC) and the Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre (CEOP) with regards to the consensual sharing of an image between two children of a similar age in a relationship is that 'prosecution options are avoided, in particular the use of legislation that would attract sex offender registration'.

It is advised that the wider safeguarding issues are looked at rather than the criminal justice element. Placing a child on the sex offenders register could cause serious damage to their future. 

The images
Once an image is on the internet, it is potentially there forever. Even if the child sending the image had no intention for it to end up on there in many cases they do and this can be potentially very harmful to a child now and in the future. Many of the images end up in chat rooms used by paedophiles and sexual predators, even those that were not taken as a result of child exploitation or grooming.

Sexual exploitation
Paedophiles may try to frighten their victims into sending further indecent images of themselves by saying that unless the child continues, it will be reported to the police and the child will be arrested and face prosecution. Safeguarding the victim should be at the centre of any police involvement in not only these types of incidents but also non exploitation scenarios.

If you or anyone you know are being sexually exploited then contact your local police by dialling 101 or 999 in an emergency. Police forces have specially trained officers to deal with these types of incidents.

Additionally, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is the UK internet Hotline for anyone to report online child sexual abuse imagery and non-photographic child sexual abuse images anonymously.

IWF works internationally to make the internet safer. They help victims of child sexual abuse worldwide by identifying and removing online images and videos of their abuse.

For further information and for a link to this, along with other websites, please see links in related information.