Almost 200 children under 12 have been branded ‘suspects’ by police in the past three years, according to figures obtained by the Daily Mail.
Police are now questioning whether all these children should remain on their databases or if officers should be investigating in the first place.
At least 5,000 children under 18 were quizzed by police for sending or receiving nude images between April 2014 and April 2017, the figures show. Taking, sending or possessing naked pictures of a child is a criminal offence, even if the child took the photo.
It means police are required by law to treat these youngsters as suspects, which risks criminalising a generation of pupils.
The name of every child caught swapping naked selfies is placed on a police database alongside the ‘crime’ they are alleged to have committed – potentially ruining their chances of employment as adults when they apply for certain jobs involving children.
Last year only 63 under-18s were actually charged with making, distributing or possessing indecent images under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
Thousands of other investigations were dropped because they were classed as ‘experimental’ behaviour by the children.
Thames Valley Police investigated 642 children between 2014 and 2017, and Norfolk quizzed 575 youngsters. Some 432 were interrogated by West Mercia Police and 345 were investigated by Humberside. Some forces have seen a 16-fold increase in child suspects in only two years. Norfolk Constabulary investigated 408 children in 2016-17, compared to 25 two years earlier.
Derbyshire had 164 cases last year, up from eight in 2015. And the number of child suspects in Suffolk rose from 17 to 202 in two years. On one occasion a five-year-old was branded an ‘offender’ by Hertfordshire Police for taking an indecent image of another child. In Northamptonshire, a seven-year-old girl was investigated after she used an iPad to film herself naked before putting the video on YouTube.
Neither could be prosecuted because they were under ten, the age of criminal responsibility.
At least 31 children under ten have been questioned over nude pictures in the past three years. Two were aged only five. Over the same period, police investigated 38 children aged ten. More than 105 11-year-olds and 327 12-year-olds were quizzed.
Police also looked into allegations against 678 children of 13. On one occasion, a 13-year-old girl sent a boy a topless selfie to his Xbox console. Others used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Skype to swap nude images.
The true figures are expected to be far higher because around half the 43 police forces in the UK declined to provide data.
Chief Constable Olivia Pinkney, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for children and young people, questioned whether many of the cases were worthy of police investigation.
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