If you want to know why we never seem to be able to develop a sensible and proportionate policy towards prosecuting sex offences look no further than the comment threads beneath this morning’s story about Chief Constable Simon Bailey.
Bailey, speaking on the Today programme, suggested that men who view child porn should not automatically be jailed but should instead be cautioned, put on the sex offenders’ register and made to attend courses on offending. This, he says, has become necessary in order to concentrate police resources on the most dangerous offenders – those who are a physical risk to children – and to prevent the Crown Prosecution Service becoming clogged up with cases. Operation Hydrant, the investigation into child sex offences which Bailey leads, is already investigating 400 people a month, which he described as the ‘tip of the iceberg’.
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