THE police’s leading child protection officer has said that men who have sex with children should not be classed as “paedophiles” if the victim is between the ages of 13 and 15 years old.

Terry Grange, the Association of Chief Police Officers’ (Acpo) spokesman on child protection and managing sex offenders, said only those
who targeted prepubescent children deserved to be labelled and treated
as “paedophiles”.

He added that the term “child pornography” should apply only to images of children aged below 13, for the same reason. “Child porn is 12 and under,” said Grange, who is chief constable of Dyfed-Powys police. “For me, that sort of thing, paedophilia, is [with] prepubescent children.”

Grange’s views, set out in an interview with The Sunday Times, is expected to spark debate among policy makers and child protection professionals.

Many believe that anyone having sexual relations with a child under 16 is not only committing an offence, but should be treated as a paedophile.
Michele Elliott, director of the charity Kidscape, called Grange’s views “very disturbing, especially from a police officer”.

She said: “Most people would say that no adult should be having sex with a child under the age of 16, and that if they do, they are sexually attracted to children and if they are, they are a paedophile.”

The law sets the age of sexual consent at 16. Anyone having sexual intercourse with a child under that age is deemed to have committed an offence. However, the offence is classed as “unlawful sexual intercourse” if the child is 13 years old or more and consenting. If they are under 13, the offence is rape.

Grange says his views — which he emphasises are personal — reflect these subtleties in the law, which is intended to allow a pragmatic approach to be taken in cases of young adults having consensual sex with children between the ages of
13 and 15.

“It is much more of an issue for me if a child is under 13,” said Grange. “I think the closer they get to 16 the more it becomes a grey area and I think everyone in the field of dealing with sexual health and sexual activity acknowledges that.

“As it [the age] goes down so I think the liability of the adult gets greater, so if the girl is 13 and the adult is in his twenties I am not particularly prone to accept the ‘I thought she was 16’ excuse. And if she is 12, it is rape.”

Asked how he would define paedophilia, Grange said: “ We are talking about very young people [when] it is paedophilia, and I wouldn’t want to mix up kids who are just the wrong side of 16 with paedophiles.”

“I don’t actually personally adhere to the 15-year-old being with a 20-year-old boyfriend being paedophilia, or even if the boyfriend is 30.”

Many European countries, including Austria, Bulgaria and Croatia, set a lower age of consent at 14, while in Spain it is 13. In Britain studies have suggested that a third of girls and a sixth of boys have sex before 16.

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