Attempted Sexual Communication - No Further Action

Case study summary

Our client had been accused of attempted sexual communications with a child. The reality was he had speaking with an adult online trying to trick him. Following comprehensive representations, the police accepted he never wanted to speak with a child and took no further action.

Case study

When we first spoke with our client, he was struggling with an allegation he knew was not true. As lawyers with significant experience in sexual offences, we understand that to be accused of attempted sexual communications with a child is not only damaging for the person, but a difficult allegation to disprove. Thankfully, our lawyers understand how to find inaccuracies in these investigations.

We took the time to take in-depth instructions from our client. As a homosexual man, he described a number of online chat sites that can be used to speak with other men. In relation to this allegation, he had been speaking to a male on a site that insisted all users have to be 18 years or older. The specific male our client spoke with, who he took to be an adult due to this age restriction, listed his location as 71 miles away.

However, the conversation took a turn when all of a sudden the male told our client he was 13 years old and now said he was only 12 miles from him. Understandably this unsettled our client and right away he knew someone was trying to trick him. Being an adult male himself, our client knew that he should not continue the conversation and so the interaction was brief. Shortly after the conversation stopped, our client was arrested.

Thankfully, our client still had the full conversation saved as screenshots on his phone. We were able to use these, alongside a powerful letter of representations, to present the reality of the situation. Specifically, that our client knew right away this was someone trying to trick him into speaking with a child and, in fact, it was. To prosecute him when there was clearly no belief he was speaking with a child, nor intent to do so, would be unjust.

After taking the time to consider our representations, the police acknowledged the reality of this attempted entrapment and decided to take no further action against our client. This prevented an unjustified prosecution and our client has been able to carry on with his life and is grateful to us that he can do so.