R v SIQ

The victim in this case is entitled to lifelong anonymity pursuant to the provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992. No matter relating to her shall during her lifetime be included in any publication if it is likely to lead members of the public to identify her as the victim of two of the offences. This prohibition applies unless waived or lifted in accordance with section 3 of the Act. There were two orders made in the Crown Court pursuant to section 45 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 restricting publicity in relation to the victim and in relation to her brother. Both of those section 45 orders provided that no matter relating to either of those children can be published which would identify them, including specifically: their name, address, any educational establishment or any workplace that they attend and any picture of them. The section 45 orders last until the two children reach the age of 18. Thereafter there will remain in place the lifelong entitlement to anonymity for the sister. In order to protect her anonymity it is necessary to anonymise the name of the Offender.

The Offender is aged 20. His Majesty's Solicitor General seeks leave to refer as unduly lenient a sentence passed on him by His Honour Judge Melville sitting in the Crown Court at Portsmouth on 10 April 2026 for offences arising out of indecent or prohibited images of children found on the Offender's mobile devices. The sentences passed for each offence were a 2-year community order with requirements comprising a mental health treatment programme for 12 days, a programme requirement and an RAR requirement of up to 25 days. The Judge also imposed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for a period of 5 years.

The offences fall into three categories, namely (1) possession of images, (2) distribution of images, and (3) production of an image, which was a 54-second video recording which also involved the offence of voyeurism in taking it, and which was also distributed.

So far as that third category (production) is concerned, the 54-second video was taken on a device which the Offender placed on the floor of his sister's bedroom. She was aged 10 at the time. It showed her entering the bedroom wearing pants and a bra. She removed her bra before cupping her naked breasts and then bending down and removing her underwear to her knees before pulling it back up. She was unaware that her actions were being recorded. The Offender had just turned 19 when this took place. The video and screenshots from it were then shared by the Offender in various chatrooms online and commented on by him and others in explicitly sexual terms.

The distribution offences involved 112 Category A images (of which 103 were moving images), 61 Category B images (of which 39 were moving images) and 93 Category C images (55 of which were moving images). These were of children aged between 5 and 12 years old. The images included the anal penetration of a female child aged 5 - 7 years, the oral penetration of a female child aged 7 - 9 years, a male child aged 5 - 7 years performing oral sex on an adult female, and a female child aged 9 - 11 years straddling the face of an adult female whilst being orally penetrated by an adult male. The Offender was aged either 18 or 19 when these offences occurred.

The possession offences involved 1,383 further Category A images (431 of which were moving), 1,280 Category B images (154 of which were moving) and 1,196 Category C images (112 of which were moving). The possession offences also involved a further 133 moving and still images which were prohibited images of children. The ages of the children found on the moving and still images ranged from less than 1-year-old to 13 years old.

The still images included anal penetration of a 9 – 11 year-old female child, a naked female child aged between 2 and 3 sat on her bottom with an adult male touching her stomach whilst gripping his penis, and an adult male penetrating the vagina of a naked baby aged less than 1 year old whilst she was sat on his lap crying.

Moving images included a cartoon depicting oral sex of a female whilst the male character masturbated and ejaculated, and oral penetration of a female child's mouth, the child being 5 - 7 years old, the penetration being by an adult male.

The Offender was aged variously between the age of 10 and 19 when the Category A images and Category B images were downloaded; aged between 17 and 19 when the Category C images were downloaded; and aged 18 or 19 when the prohibited images were downloaded.

A number of chats were also found on the Offender's device. The chats revealed that the Offender had an active interest in obtaining and sharing indecent images of children. In those communications he also discussed his sexual interests which included an avid sexual interest in his sister. The following give a flavour:

When first arrested the Offender declined to answer questions in interview. However shortly thereafter he asked for a further interview to be arranged so that he could answer questions, and when interviewed for a second time shortly thereafter on 21 February 2025 he made full and frank admissions in interview.

He was charged on 20 November 2025.

On 12 February 2026 he entered guilty pleas to all offences at the Magistrates' Court and was sent to the Crown Court for sentencing.

Sentencing took place on 10 April 2026. The Offender was now aged 20. He had no previous convictions, reprimands, cautions or warnings recorded against him.

The Judge had a sentencing note from the prosecution which set out the relevant Guidelines and Guideline factors.

The Guideline in relation to the offences involving making indecent child images provides the following guidance for the various offences.

In relation to offences involving images in different categories, the Guideline states:

The Guideline distinguishes between three categories of making of images because the offence covers downloading, distribution and production of images. Those three different kinds of offending are separated out in the Guideline. The relevant starting points and ranges given are as follows:

The Guideline also says:

The Guideline next requires consideration of aggravating and mitigating factors specifically identified in the Guideline. The Guideline aggravating factors which apply in this case are:

There is also a Voyeurism Guideline, but that is not of immediate relevance because the voyeurism offending is effectively subsumed in the offence of the producing the image of the sister.

Additionally of relevance is the Guideline for Sentencing Children and Young People. Although the Guideline in its terms applies to sentencing those aged under 18 on the date of finding of guilt, many of the principles are also relevant to sentencing young adults aged between 18 and 25. It is noted in that Guideline that for a child or young person sentencing should be individualistic and focus on rehabilitation where possible.

Such factors are also largely reflected in the General guideline: overarching principles.

The continuing importance of taking into consideration age and maturity when sentencing young adults aged 18 or older was stressed in the decision of R v Clarke [2018] 1 Cr App R (S) 52, with its well-known reference to the fact that turning 18 does not involve a cliff edge in the development of young people and the emphasis on research showing that young people continue to mature between the ages of 18 and 25. That aspect of sentencing is also reflected in the General Guideline on Overarching Principles which in a dropdown menu under "age" as a mitigating factors has the following:

At the sentencing hearing the Judge also had a pre-sentence report written by a Mr Borg, which revealed the following:

The Judge approached the sentencing exercise as follows. He treated the lead offence as that of distribution of Category A images which had a starting point under the Guideline of 3 years.

He treated as aggravating features: the age of the children concerned, their vulnerability, the huge number of images which were possessed and distributed, the fact that some of them were moving images and the fact that at least one child was known to the Offender (i.e. his sister). The Judge said he had taken into account the pre-sentence report. He said that the particularly pertinent features were: first, that the Offender's sister was 10 at the time; secondly, that although he had been frank about his offending and troubles, in some respects they had been planned and calculated, as exemplified by the recording of his sister, and the Judge said, "you engaged in those appalling communications about your intentions with regard to your own sister".

The Judge accepted as probably true that he had a high degree of remorse and also took into account what he described as "the awful fact" that the Offender had had no communication with his family since these matters had come to light, which had isolated him still further. The Judge regarded the most important aspect of the pre-sentence report as being that he had had a therapist assisting him. Having referred to what Mr Borg had said in his risk assessment, the Judge continued:

On behalf of the Solicitor General, Ms Dhadda submitted that the offending, when properly analysed and taking account of the various aggregating factors, was so serious that only an immediate custodial sentence of at least 3½ years could be justified before discount for plea; she further submitted that even if a sentence of 2 years or less was appropriate, suspending the sentence was not justifiable, and that in any event a community order was unjustified and wrong in principle.

On behalf of the Offender, Mr Allman made written submissions in a respondent's note and amplified them before us in oral submissions which were attractively presented. He emphasised the principles applicable on an Attorney-General's Reference. He submitted that ultimately this was a sentence which was reasonable, albeit merciful, and one which correctly focused on rehabilitation which was particularly appropriate given the Offender's age and the powerful mitigation. He submitted that if perhaps it would be regarded as lenient, it did not come into the different category of being unduly lenient. In relation to the mitigating features, he placed emphasis on the following and developed submissions about them:

We keep firmly in mind the principles applicable to Attorney-General's References including that, where justified, mercy and leniency are to be commended, not criticised. Nevertheless we consider that the sentence in this case was outside the range which was reasonably available to the sentencing Judge.

The offending can be split into two aspects. The first is that relating to the Offender's sister. The offence of producing the video of her has a Guideline starting point of 18 months and a range of 1 - 3 years. There are a number of seriously aggravating features about this offending which put it at the very top of the range before addressing personal mitigation. It involved the breach of trust of an older brother; it involved a young victim; she was in her own home and in her own bedroom, being filmed without knowing it. There was then the additional humiliation of it being shared with others online and being the subject matter of degrading comments by and with them. This is a serious aspect of the offending. Once put online in this way the victim knows that it will be there forever for the sexual gratification of an innumerable number of paedophiles. There was the further degradation and humiliation of that being accompanied by discussion online of the Offender's desires to subject her to serious sexual abuse. That may well have been a matter of bravado on his part and an attempt to impress those he was communicating with online rather than with an intention to act on those expressed fantasies, but that does not diminish the scale of the degradation and humiliation for his sister. There was then the further degradation and humiliation of his having ejaculated into her underwear drawer and then an image of that being shared, together again with discussion of that online.

The other aspect of the offending was the possession and distribution of images. The starting point simply for distribution of Category A images is 3 years with a range of 2 - 5 years. If account is to be taken of all the distribution and possession offences then a sentence well above the starting point and well up in the range would be required for that offending taken alone. It has to take into account the possession offences and the large number of Category A images, a large proportion of which involved moving images. They were collected and distributed over a substantial period of time, some were of very, very young children, and many of young children, and some involved discernible pain or distress.

Given the largely distinct (although not wholly distinct) nature of these two aspects of the offending, and taking due account of totality, in our view a custodial sentence for all the offending of something more than 6 years' imprisonment would have been required for a mature adult after a trial before considering personal mitigation.

The personal mitigation available to the Offender was real and significant. Of real weight were his previous good character, his remorse, his young age and his steps to address his offending, the latter two being the most powerful. As to his youth, he was not assessed as immature for his age. He had just turned 19 when he took the video of his sister and thereafter shared it and discussed it with others online. He was 18 or 19 when he was engaged in the other chats online about his sister, and he was 18 or 19 for a significant part of the offending involving downloading and sharing of images. There was nothing in his family background or personal circumstances which provided any grounds for treating his culpability as reduced, or as grounds for treating his age as something which would make prison any harder for him than for any other 20-year-old. The steps taken to address the offending with his therapist are commendable; they provide real mitigation and deserve some real recognition in a reduction of the sentence. However, so far as concerns the prospects of rehabilitation, it is significant that Mr Borg regarded those prospects as fragile and did not suggest that the risks could be fully managed in the community, although they could be to some extent mitigated.

In those circumstances we consider that an appropriate sentence after a trial for this Offender would have been one of not less than 4 years' detention, which, with full credit for his pleas, would result in a sentence of 2 years 8 months' detention.

That would render an immediate custodial sentence inevitable. We should make clear however that even had we been persuaded that a sentence of 2 years or less could be justified, we would not have regarded it as one which could properly have been suspended when the seriousness of the offending, with some real continuing risk of reoffending, was weighed against the prospects of rehabilitation, which were real but fragile, and against the personal mitigation which we have identified.

Accordingly, we grant leave. We quash the sentences and we impose a sentence of 2 years 8 months' detention in a young offender institution for offences 4 and 7, that is the offence of distributing the Category A images and the offence of producing the video of the Offender's sister. We impose sentences of 6 months' detention in a young offender institution for the other offences. The sentences will all run concurrently so that the total sentence will be one of 2 years 8 months' detention in a young offender institution. That sentence will run from the time the Offender surrenders to custody.