My name is Rebecca, During the investigation into my mother’s husband for historical sexual abuse, It came to light that his own son, Paul Burrows was now a convicted paedophile, but had walked free from prison, despite the reprehensible and far reaching nature of his crimes. I believe the British public would be horrified to know that convicted Paedophiles don’t necessarily go to prison and may be allowed to just leave and restart their lives somewhere else. None of us want that! And nor is that justice!  Paedophiles must go to prison, and to this end I am asking for your signature in support of sentencing reforms. 

Paul was convicted of possessing and distributing over 40,000 indecent images of children, including Category A child sex images (child rape and torture) involving children as young as three years old, many from Thailand. He had software to avoid detection. To be clear category A includes the rape and torture of babies, children and animals, and he had thousands of them! 

He was given just a 20-month suspended sentence. He served no prison time. He was order to do 180 hours unpaid work, the children were not given justice and we were not kept safe. Instead, he, like many like him, has quietly disappeared, while the children in those images continue to suffer, their lives shattered forever, in their tens if not hundreds of thousands. We are the market for these children….. and that has to stop. 

These are not victimless crimes. Each image documents a real child being abused — and often, as if the act itself wasn’t enough, these children go on to live with lifelong trauma or are pushed into addiction and exploitation and are trafficked further into the sex trade. 

We call on the UK Government to:

Ensure mandatory custodial sentences for Category A convictions
Reform the sentencing guidelines for child sexual abuse image offences
Close legal loopholes that allow suspended sentences in high-volume cases
Recognise these crimes as forms of global, ongoing abuse

I can’t stop thinking about these poor children and where they may have ended up, if they are even still a live and I can’t just shrug and say well the world is a screwed up place. We owe it to those children, whose faces we’ll never see, to get justice for them. When we find those predators, they need to go to prison. Simple. Survivors deserve justice. Children deserve protection. 

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