Why is the Government dawdling over a law that police and public agree would protect children online?
In 2014 the Government promised it would bring in a law to make sexually messaging children a crime, something the police say would be a huge help in the fight against online grooming. We are still waiting for them to act on their words
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Your support makes all the difference.In October 2014 the NSPCC launched Flaw in the Law, a campaign to call for a clear new offence that would make it illegal for an adult to send a child a sexual message. Unbelievably, at the time police were powerless to act if an adult sent someone under 16 a sexual communication.
Knowing how online grooming is a huge problem for the modern world, we decided to do something about it. And the public agreed with us. More than 50,000 people threw their weight behind our campaign and signed a petition demanding the Government close the loophole.
And, thanks to this chorus of voices, in December 2014 the then Prime Minister David Cameron announced that Westminster would introduce such a law. By March 2015 a law was passed as part of the Serious Crime Act (2015) that made it a criminal offence for an adult to send a sexual message to a child. So far, so good.
And yet, 19 months, later, this vital offence that could help police stop potential groomers in their tracks is still waiting to be enforced. Despite being given the go-ahead it remains, inexplicably, waiting to be activated.
Every day that this commencement order gathers dust on some government official's desk, waiting to be enforced, is another day that children are at risk from an adult who wants to target them.
Knowing what a huge impact this offence could have on protecting young people it is both bewildering and infuriating that we are still waiting for this law to be triggered.
Police have told us that the creation of the new offence would vastly improve their tactics in dealing with the grooming of children online and would help to prevent contact sexual offences against children being committed.
The internet plays a huge part in all of our lives, much of it positive of course, but we know that it can be used as a gateway for sexual predators to contact children. With that in mind, the Government cannot afford to dawdle over something as essential as keeping young people safe from those who want to prey on them.
The police and public have spoken, and the Government claimed that they had listened. Now it is high time that they stopped dragging their feet and brought this law into effect.
Peter Wanless is CEO of the NSPCC
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