Law lets paedophiles slip through Net

One of the country’s top policemen last night urged ministers to follow the English example and introduce a specific offence of internet grooming north of the Border, a crime carrying a potential sentence of 10 years in jail.

Bob Ovens, deputy chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway, said chatroom predators were resulting in an average of two cases a month of internet grooming coming to their attention in Scotland.

But the lack of an up-to-date law means Scottish officers are resorting to ‘make do’ charges including breach of the peace, an offence which usually carries a fine if it can be proven at all.

Ovens said a specific internet grooming offence in Scotland would make their job easier.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Tories have accused ministers of dragging their feet on the issue and will attempt to introduce the measure by tagging it on the existing legislation.

England and Wales brought in new statutes on grooming at the beginning of May last year under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The new legislation makes grooming a child an offence and allows an offender to be apprehended and punished before any abuse takes place.

Police sources said the number of groomers in Scotland who would be convicted using existing laws was "very low" because of lack of evidence as there was no law which covered "grooming" as an offence.

Ovens, who is also a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland Crime Standing Committee, said: "There have been around 24 cases investigated or being investigated in the last year.

"These are grooming cases across Scotland. Some of these, a handful, have been brought to court under a breach of the peace charge while others have been charged with lewd and libidinous practises under both Common Law and the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act. Many are still being investigated."

It is understood that in every case a paedophile contacted a young girl on an internet chatroom and followed up with either text messages on a mobile phone or by e-mail, suggesting places to meet.

All of the Scottish cases emerged after parents or relatives became concerned at the nature of e-mails or text messages being exchanged between their daughters and ‘friends’ they had met on the internet. Police were notified before any contact took place.

Ovens said the benefit of having specific legislation was that it would make it easier to charge offenders. He said currently they could still charge an offender with grooming but had to find ways of making existing laws ‘fit the crime’. Ovens added: "If we can show that alarm has been caused then we can charge them with breach of the peace, and with this charge the sheriff can put their names on the sex offenders register.

"If there is any evidence of, say, pornography being sent then we can charge them under lewd and libidinous behaviour under the Criminal Offences Act or common law. So we do have laws which allows us to charge people with ‘grooming’.

"However, we welcome the introduction of new legislation which would make it easier for us because it would be a specific law."

Ovens admitted the extent of grooming going on was probably higher than their figures suggested. He said: "These have been just specific cases in Scotland where both the perpetrator and the victim have been in Scotland. There could be people in England targeting Scots girls but we don’t have this sort of information."

Tory deputy justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell will propose an amendment to the Anti-Social Behaviour Bill to include grooming legislation at a committee meeting on Wednesday.

Mitchell, who in March this year tabled a member’s Bill to target predatory adults who seek to arrange meetings with children using internet chatrooms, other websites, and mobile phone text messaging, said Scotland was lagging behind the rest of the UK in cracking down.

She said: "The existing laws are not good enough and we need to act fast to give Scottish children the same protection as those in England and Wales."

A spokesman for NCH Scotland said the figure of 24 cases was "incredibly high".

He added: "The police were having to make do with odd bits of the law which were not designed to catch these sorts of people. I’m hoping the Scottish Parliament will copy what Westminster has done."

Barnardo’s Scotland said they would welcome new legislation.

Douglas Hamilton, policy officer for the charity, said: "We are in discussions with a number of parties, the police and the Scottish Executive, on this issue so we can come up with the best legislation possible."

Earlier this year Scottish paedophile John Gibson was found guilty of grooming a schoolgirl from Ludlow, Shropshire, for sex using a mobile phone text service. He made contact with the girl through a ‘text flirt chatline’ and lured her to his home for unlawful sex. He had obtained the 13-year-old’s mobile phone number after she signed up to an unregulated text chatroom service.

The teenage girl, used her mobile phone to contact the ‘text flirt chatline’ after she had seen it advertised.

She pretended to be 17 years old and was able to register with the service, despite the fact it is restricted to over-18s.

The girl received replies from a number of men, including Gibson, of Alloa, Clackmannanshire, who has a previous conviction for a sexual offence dating back to 1985. The pair began texting and writing to one another and eventually arranged to meet in May last year. The girl left her home and took a train to Scotland, meeting Gibson at Stirling railway station.

Her family reported her missing and she was traced to Gibson’s home three days later by West Mercia Police.