A CHARITY worker who engages with child sex offenders has spoken out about the importance of language surrounding harm to victims following the sentencing of a Basingstoke man caught with thousands of indecent images of youngsters.

Neia Hepburn has a masters in forensic psychology, and extensive experience working on sex offender treatment and drug and alcohol abuse programmes.  

She has been working with charity The Lucy Faithfull Foundation for the past five years, which offers a variety of different services, all aimed at preventing child sex abuse. These include a prevention programme, awareness raising measures, and a confidential helpline. 

She said: “We want to stop the cycle, because often that’s what people get themselves into. Often they can’t find a way out. 

“We want to help people know that we can help them to not offend again. People sometimes don’t want to ring the helpline because they think we will tell the police if they even have thoughts. We just want to be there for them, we don’t even have to take their real names. 

“We will often get people who are accessing this type of content, but have not been arrested.”

Neia is also part of a team which is putting together a book on autism and sexual offending, and it was a colleague from this project who drew her attention to the case of Ross McNaughton from Basingstoke.

McNaughton, of Kings Road, South Ham, was sentenced to 30 months in prison last month after he admitted to downloading thousands of indecent images of children and breaching his sexual harm prevention order. 

The 53-year-old was described by his defence barrister as a “sad old man” with a "terrible addiction".

READ MORE: Man, 53, who downloaded thousands of indecent images of children sent to prison for over two years

However, it was a quote from the same barrister at an earlier hearing which caught Neia’s attention.

They said: “Although we all know that these offences are horrendous, they do not actually harm children and the defendant has never ever done anything other than look. He has never attempted to hurt a child or done anything that involves that.”

Neia told the Gazette that she understands why the barrister may have said this, but is concerned it takes away from the trauma experienced by victims. 

She said: “I thought we had packed those kinds of ideas. I was shocked, and really disappointed that a professional was saying that out loud. 

“The fact is that the harm is really serious. By saying things like that, a victim who read it would think that no one validates them. Often, survivors just want to be heard.”

Neia explained that, as part of the sessions the charity does with offenders, they talk to them about the “things they tell their conscience”, such as that the offending was “years ago” or “I didn’t actually take the picture”.

She added: “So to hear this kind of thing from a lawyer, it’s kind of corroborating that. It can lead to tipping the balance and, while it may seem nebulous and vague, it’s really important.”

READ MORE: Man, 53, who downloaded thousands of indecent images of children to be sentenced later this month

Neia says that better training on how to deal with these types of cases is needed, adding: “I think training, and more research, would be quite useful in terms of risk because it’s a very uncertain field. So, for example, does someone represent a true risk in terms of contact offending? Or does it remain in a world of sort of fantasy?”

Looking at how society more widely approaches child sex offence cases, she said that there are many improvements she would like to see. 

“I know that the police find it hard to keep up,” she said. “So families are left with a lot of uncertainty.”

She continued: “For some people, the shock is enough, but for others the issues are so much deeper and they need some very holistic work. 

“I can’t comment on the kind of courses or their availability in prison. But time and time again I come across people who got into trouble with porn sites, and felt like they couldn’t get out of it. At the moment, this isn’t taken seriously enough by medical professionals.”

Neia believes file-sharing websites which allow people to access legal “vanilla porn”, and then escalate their searches as they become ”inured”, are “highly culpable” and need to be targeted. 

“I think they need shutting down,” she said. “It’s just too easy these days to turn an addiction into something you are arrested for, and then your whole family suffers. It’s like having a drug dealer in your cellar. What I would really like to see is more authority measures, more oversight.”

For more information about the of The Lucy Faithfull Foundation, visit lucyfaithfull.org.uk. 

You can also call the confidential Stop It Now! helpline on 0808 1000 900.