NEVER GO GUILTY AND NEVER ACCEPT  A CAUTION  has been the advice we give consistently strongly.  Take a recent case – 2008 – come to us via the gay grapevine – because these are unreported cases.
Tom has a mobile phone that takes pictures and he’d bought a gay soft porn DVD of lads he says were all over 16 messing about sexually.  With his mobile phone Tom transferred some pictures from the video.  Why ?  To test the technology ?  To show off in banter in his local gay bar ?  For a bit of a lark ? Whatever the reason – that’s what he did, albeit that the images on the mobile were not very clear, and of course very small.
Tom then loses his mobile phone – but some kindly stranger finds it and hands it in to a police station.  By using numbers in his address book the police find out this mobile phone belongs to Tom and where Tom lives.  The police however, ever enterprising, had a little look at what else was in the mobile’s memory – and up comes Ye Porn.

Now although sex is possible between lads over 16 to be legally o.k. under certain circumstances – it is illegal to possess or to take images of them unless they are over 18.  So four officers make a call on Tom, in plain clothes. They point out to Tom his possession on his mobile of illegal material – but suggest they won’t prosecute because he wouldn’t want that, would he – with the attendant harassment and publicity etc. – if he accepts a caution, they will not proceed.
Tom seizes at the caution – “Yes” and he is formally cautioned. BUT, but within that caution comes a requirement to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register and that means his employers are notified.  He works as a cleaner at a school and he is sacked.

When a caution is issued it’s rare to have your lawyer present.  Tom didn’t.

And there is virtually no appeal against a caution.  In theory one could take a private prosecution against the police – that one was cautioned under duress.  What chances of that succeeding ?

In Tom’s case the evidence was so slight it is doubtful the police would have succeeded in persuading the CPS to make a prosecution – and doubtful if they did, it would be successful in court.

But The Mounties got their man – just by a caution.  There.  One understands it takes a lot of nerve to say in effect  “go on, you prosecute me.” – but a caution these days is a lot more than just a word in the ear.  Be aware. Of the cautionary tale of Tom.