'Women can also be paedophiles': police
A child abuse investigator has highlighted a case from Northampton as an example of female sex offending at a conference to raise awareness about women paedophiles.
Det Insp James Larkin, from Northamptonshire Police, led the team that investigated Katie Scott, of Ashbrow Road in Briar Hill, who sexually abused a young child while being filmed by her partner Christopher Oxtoby.
The pair were jailed last year after the clip was found during an FBI investigation, which included the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) centre and Northamptonshire Police.
Det Insp Larkin, who cited Oxtoby and Scott in a case study at a CEOP conference in Manchester last week, said he wanted to change the perception of sex offending as a crime committed by men.
"My message is there are women who commit these offences whether in isolation or in conjunction with a male offender," he said.
"We probably believe that a female who bears children can't possibly do such depraved things to a child but it's the same with domestic abuse. Just because people don't come forward, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
"Female offenders can be predators, groomers or people in care settings. What they potentially have as the added justification is that they may have been controlled or coerced."
Judge Thomas Corrie, who sentenced Scott last May, said she had allowed herself to be led into sexually abusing a child by Oxtoby, who had a history of sex offences.
Despite the gravity of the case, Det Insp Larkin said Oxtoby and Scott were not the worst abusers he had seen in Northamptonshire.
"The second case that I produced for the conference was far more serious by the female than in Oxtoby and Scott," he said.
"It was against a very young child and I have to say Oxtoby and Scott isn't actually the most serious in terms of offences committed against children."
Det Insp Larkin said only two women in Northamptonshire have been prosecuted for sex crimes against children in the last four years.
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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