Reduced sentence for young sex offender

Saturday 05 August 2017

A 22-year-old man convicted of making and distributing indecent photographs of young children has been given a reduced sentence because of the age he was when committed the offences.

Passing sentence, the Bailiff, Sir William Bailhache, said although the offences had recently come to light, Ryan Salsac had committed them six years ago, when he was 17, and that his age needed to be taken into account.

When police raided his house in St Clement in February Mr Salsac is alleged to have said to the officers ‘I know what this might be about’. He handed over a number of laptops to them, including one that was hidden behind a radiator.

Following a forensic investigation of the computers Mr Salsac was charged with making 18 indecent images of children, including two stills and a video classified as category 4 – the second highest band in terms of severity – and four counts of distributing indecent images, all of which he admitted.

According to Sir William it was clear Mr Salsac knew he’d committed an offence because he’d hidden the computers, and the offences were very serious because “real children have suffered in the making of these images”, nevertheless it was standard practice for the court to take the age of the offender into account when sentencing.

He went on to explain this is because it is generally accepted young people “are less responsible, and therefore less culpable”, and that “greater emphasis is put on rehabilitation rather than punishment.”

Unless there are exceptional circumstances the starting sentencing point for anyone found making and distributing images in category four – is three years’ imprisonment. But, taking Mr Salsac’s age into consideration, the court sentenced him to 18 months probation and 150 hours community service – the equivalent of nine months in prison. He was also put on the sex offenders register for five years, and is obliged to hand over to police at any time any electronic devices capable of connection to the internet for their inspection if they demand it.

An NSPCC Jersey spokesperson said: "Possessing child abuse images is a serious offence and we must never forget that the children in these videos and images are being raped and sexually assaulted to produce this sickening material. The proliferation of abuse images online is a growing problem, fuelled by offenders like Salsac. More needs to be done by internet provides, governments and law enforcement to cut this material off at the source, but even then there is no guarantee that the existing abuse images will ever disappear from the web."