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A TEENAGER has been left devastated after her boyfriend was charged with possession of child pornography because of sexy selfies she sent him.

Alison, 17, (not her real name) and her partner Peter, 22, (also not her real name) say they "didn't know" it was illegal to swap sexy pictures.

"We can have sex, how is sending him a few pictures of myself such a crime?" she says.

"I'm not a young child and Peter is not an abusive sex offender," she adds.

Alison, who is four months away from being 18, has been left shattered by the way the couple have been treated by police.

The stress of the situation has forced both of them out of education.

Under existing law, people aged 16 and 17 can legally consent to sex but can get into trouble for making "child pornography" if they possess and share images of their own lawful sexual activities.

Peter has been charged for possession of indecent photographs of children under the Protection of Children Act.

Alison and her mother are now calling for a change in the law to protect consenting couples from getting into distressing legal situations like this.

The pictures that Alison and Peter took - around a dozen of them - were only discovered following a series of "unfortunate and unrelated events" that meant the police got hold of her mobile phone.

"I chose to send pictures of myself to Peter"

Alison was then interviewed and asked extremely personal questions about her sex life. Police decided not to prosecute her because of her age, but Peter is receiving the full force of the law.

The dealings with the police have been incredibly upsetting for the 17-year-old, particularly now that so many strangers - police, solicitors and child protection agents - have seen the private images.

"I am finding it hard to have any sexual intimacy now as every time we start I just remember the horrible detective leering at me and judging me during the interview, as if I'd behaved in a completely immoral way," she says.

"I feel my consent has been total violated by the people who are supposed to be protecting children.

"I chose to send pictures of myself to Peter. I did NOT choose for all those detectives, solicitors and goodness knows who else to see them.

"I keep imagining them looking and laughing and it makes me feel physically sick."

A puritanical outlook

The stress of the incident has caused Alison's asthma and eczema to flare up, forcing her to leave college. Her grades have slipped from regular As to barely markable work. Peter has also quit education and faces being branded a sex offender.

"Sometimes I can hardly breathe and I'm not sure if it's asthma or a panic attack as the upcoming court case is constantly on my mind," she says. "I can't carry on feeling like this."

Alison's mum says the fallout has been "horrendous" and has hit both families hard.

(Image: Getty)

"I cannot imagine that when the law was enacted it was envisaged it would be used to criminalise consensual images shared between teenagers," she says.

"The zealous way the police detective has pursued this case against all logic smacks of a puritanical outlook removed from current social media reality."

Alison says that she and Peter are now closer than ever, "but it could easily have driven us apart."

Criminalising the 'selfie generation'

The case highlights a problem with using legislation designed to stop child abuse to clamp down on 16-18-year-olds who are sharing photos of themselves consensually.

A collective of academics and legal experts called Backlash is calling for a change to the law to protect the so-called ‘selfie generation’.

The campaign is led by lawyer Myles Jackman, who told Mirror Online that the current law “makes no sense”.

Until 2003 the age of sexual consent and the age of representation in "indecent" images was the same. But the law was changed in order to better protect 16 and 17-year-olds from being exploited by pornographers.

At the time nobody could have predicted the subsequent explosion of smartphones with cameras and picture messaging apps like Snapchat, which have become massively popular among teenagers dealing with adolescent sexuality.

What this means is a generation of young people taking, making, distributing and possessing indecent images of “children”.

Jackman believes that clearer guidelines need to be introduced to make sure that young people like Alison and Peter don’t get dragged into unnecessary legal proceedings.

“If it's peer appropriate, non-commercial and if it’s consensual, why should it be criminalised?”

“Maybe it isn't in the interest of justice to criminalise young people, potentially putting prohibition on their career opportunities,” he added.

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