Call for child porn court review

The Solicitor General wanted the 12-month sentence extended

A leading children's charity is calling for a review of sentencing guidelines for child pornography offences.

It comes after the Court of Appeal refused to extend a 12-month sentence for a man convicted of conspiracy to distribute indecent photographs.

Timothy Pickup, 45, from Huddersfield is due to be released on Wednesday.

His sentence was based on a sliding scale of the severity of images - a measure used by courts which the charity NCH wants to see abolished.

Guidelines

Solicitor General Harriet Harman failed in a bid to lengthen Pickup's sentence on Tuesday, prompting NCH to say the case highlighted weaknesses in dealing with such crimes.

The sliding scale is to used to predict how much danger those convicted might pose to children in the future.

The types of image a person is found in possession of are not necessarily any kind of guide at all to the danger they might represent John Carr NCH internet adviser

The guidelines, issued to judges in November 2002, grade images from one (less severe) to five (most severe).

NCH's internet adviser John Carr said the guidelines assumed that a person found in possession of level one or two images is less likely to be a danger to children in the future than someone at level five.

"There's absolutely no evidence at all to support that notion, in fact the opposite could be true," he said.

"We want courts to make it absolutely explicit that the types of image a person is found in possession of are not necessarily any kind of guide at all to the danger they might represent to children in the future."

Brotherhood

Pickup was arrested in 2003 during investigations into an international internet paedophile ring called the Shadows Brotherhood. He was jailed in June.

Pickup admitted in a police interview that he was the administrator of a bulletin board used by members to distribute indecent images of children.

He was only caught in possession of the type treated by the criminal justice system as less serious, although police suspected he had cleaned his computer with software which can destroy evidence.

The Solicitor General's counsel had argued that greater culpability arose from Pickup's dedicated role of providing the access to indecent material.

The counsel had argued that the sentence was "unduly lenient".