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Sexual Offences

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 updated the law, much of which dated back to 1956.

The main provisions of the Act include the following:

  • Rape is widened to include oral penetration
  • Significant changes to the issue of consent
  • Specific offences relating to children under 13, 16 and 18
  • Offences to protect vulnerable persons with a mental disorder
  • Other miscellaneous offences
  • Strengthening the notification requirements and providing new civil preventative orders

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Crimes involving young people

Young people as victims and witnesses

Being a victim or a witness to a crime is not easy, but we work hard to bring offenders to justice. Throughout the justice process we will support young victims and witnesses and treat them with dignity.

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Youth crime

The Crown Prosecution Service acts in partnership with other agencies such as the police, the youth justice board, children's services, courts and youth offending teams. Each area of the CPS has a youth justice specialist who oversees the prosecution of youth crime in their area.

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Home » News Centre » Press Releases » Internet blackmailer sentenced for forcing girls to pose naked

Internet blackmailer sentenced for forcing girls to pose naked

09/11/2006

A blackmailer who preyed on young girls by invading their homes via their computers and forcing them to participate in indecent activity online was sentenced to ten years imprisonment at Inner London Crown Court today.

Adrian Ringland, 36, posed as a young man in internet chat rooms and while in communication with his victims planted 'Trojans' on their computers enabling him to control their computers and to use this control to identify potentially embarrassing material which he threatened to disclose to their friends and family if they refused to pose for indecent photos.

Russell Tyner, from the Crown Prosecution Service said:

"Adrian Ringland is a sexual predator who employed high tech methods to control and victimise adolescent girls. By invading their homes through their computers, he was able to instil such fear and alarm that his victims felt helpless to resist his sinister threats and sexual demands.

This conviction shows that those who use the internet to commit these crimes can be detected, and can expect to receive a substantial prison sentence.

This investigation was complex and lengthy and we are grateful for the co-operation of the Canadian and U.S. authorities."

  1. Ringland pleaded guilty to three counts of blackmail, six counts of making indecent photographs of children, two counts under the Computer Misuse Act (unauthorised modification of computer material) and one count of indecency with a child.
  2. The victims aged between 13 and 16 were living in the UK and Canada.
  3. He also pleaded guilty to one offence of grooming and six offences of sexual activity with a girl aged between 13 and 15. He met the victim through a chatroom.
  4. A Trojan horse program, commonly referred to as a Trojan, is a normal computer program that is either sent disguised as a different file such as an image file or embedded in another program. Trojans implementing backdoors typically set up a hidden server, which a hacker can then log on to.
  5. A Trojan is designed to operate with functions unknown to the victim. The kind of undesired functions are not part of the definition of a Trojan; they can be of any kind, but typically they have malicious intent.
  6. In practice, Trojans often contain spying functions or backdoor functions, as described above, that allow a computer to be remotely controlled from the network without the owner's knowledge.
  7. For further enquiries please contact CPS Press Office on 010 7796 8127.