Analysis by severity

Reports analysis

We assess child sexual abuse material according to the levels detailed in the Sentencing Council's Sexual Offences Definitive Guideline. The Indecent Photographs of Children section (Page 34) outlines the different categories of child sexual abuse material.

  • Category A: Images involving penetrative sexual activity; images involving sexual activity with an animal; or sadism.
  • Category B: Images involving non-penetrative sexual activity.
  • Category C: Other indecent images not falling within categories A or B.

An example of Category C is images that depict partially nude, nude or topless sexual posing.

Severity of abuse – past three years

This chart shows the severity of child sexual abuse according to UK Sentencing Council categories A, B and C.

Severity assessments are given to URLs that directly show child sexual abuse or reported criminal imagery. There are some criminal URLs such as gateways, inchoate sites, adverts and paedophile manuals that are not included in this chart, as they do not directly show this criminal imagery but instead either link to it or advertise it and therefore they are not given a severity assessment.