UK charity offers community support to online child abuse offenders

Circles UK is one of a handful of organisations taking creative approaches to help tackle an escalating problem

James (not his real name) was in his early 20s and sinking into depression after the death of his father when he started to visit anonymous online chatrooms. There he formed a relationship he now recognises as “really unhealthy” with a man who encouraged him to download indecent images of children.

James describes his arrest – his first contact with the criminal justice system – as shocking. He had only the vaguest idea that this activity was illegal and understood it as victimless. “I think very differently now,” he says.