Family and Friends Forum

I just wanted to pop on and update you all as we had the final hearing today. I have been dreading this day for so long, but it’s over and I honestly couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome so I wanted to share a positive with those who are interested as there is often a lot of scary experiences.



The judge settled on an 18 month Community Order. 200 hours unpaid work + a 30 day “Maps for Change” course. This is really good considering they started at a 2 year custodial.



The hearing was horrendously painful to sit through for me. I knew the charges etc but it’s still horrible to have conversation like that read out loud. I cried and had to leave the gallery at one point. But I breathed deep, and came back in again because he wasn’t gonna face it on his own.



The background if it’s of any use is that OH was arrested and charged over 2 years ago with “attempted communication with a child”. Attempted because it was a police decoy.



He has done a lot of work on himself since arrest including the Lucy Faithful course and a specialist psychotherapist for the best part of 2 years. This was used as a huge part of the mitigation.



He had 8 character witness statements prepared from various family and friends. Again, this was mitigation.



Our Barrister struck a deal with the crown prior to the hearing to remove the part of the SHPO in regards to being around under 16s. This was a huge relief to us and means we don’t have to avoid friends and family with kids which was a big worry and would have made my life very isolating.



I think we were very lucky to have a pragmatic and very fair judge, as well as excellent council. Im still processing all of this at the moment. Keep feeling like someone is going to say “nah this is a dream” and take him away from me. Obviously we still have the worry about press but I’ve decided I’m not going to obsess about it.



Good luck to anyone who’s going through the motions at the moment… and a huge thank you to those who have helped me over the last 2 years x

Sorry I feel like I should add, He also received 5 years SOR and 5 years SHPO surrounding device checks.

The first anniversary of arrest is horrible - but you're strong and you'll get through it. We had to wait over 2 years before we heard anything about devices - so hard to live your life with that going on in the background, isn't it!?



His charge was "Adult attempt to engage in sexual communication with a child". But it was a police decoy. They did take that into account in court as a "minor" mitigation. X