My son is on pre-charge bail for IIOC

[Grammarqueen23]

I’m looking for some advice. My 19 year old son was arrested on suspicion of ‘distribution of an indecent image of a child’ which apparently came from a ‘ping’ to his phone around six months ago. He denies knowing anything about it. He gave all his passwords to police, cooperated fully and they took all his electronics. He’s confident they won’t find anything but I am having a nervous breakdown. We have to wait three months for him to go to the police station and even then he may just be bailed for a further three months. He doesn’t want to consult a solicitor until he knows more but I’m terrified of what will happen. How can they be sure it was his device? I just don’t know what to do next or what to expect. He asked for a solicitor when he was interviewed, but she has said there isn’t much can be done until his appointment at the police station in three months. Is this correct or should we be sorting out a solicitor? Or just go with the one they provide at the time?

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Grammarqueen23

Welcome to our Board, which gives advice to families who have social workers involved with their children (aged between 0-18).

I understand that your 19 year old son has been arrested and that this is a worrying time for you. Here is some information which may be relevant to your son’s situation from the Crown Prosecution Service and here is information about bail and its conditions.

I hope it is helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie

[rainyday52]

Hello Grammarqueen23 - just wanted to reply although I can't give you any advice or info, but just to say that I'm a mum too and we have our son staying with us whilst on bail for a similar charge, although in his case he admits he looked at stuff and will plead guilty when he is finally charged. He has two sons who he can only see if supervised so we're doing a lot of driving around as we don't live in the same area, and we foresee that this is the way it will have to be for some time. We also wondered about when would be the right time to instruct (is that the right word?) a solicitor and our son rang around a few criminal defence lawyers who all told him that there wasn't much that could be done by them until he was actually charged.
What our son is doing is engaging with the Lucy Faithfull Foundation which might be something you could look at on their website as there is a lot of help there. Of course the circumstances you've described are different for our two sons but we're both mums so I guess our emotions are similar. I haven't felt able to question my son about the specific things he looked at as I guess I've been afraid to find out but his sister who has a 5 year old and lives locally did ask him outright and although I still don't want to know too much until I have to, she says she believes he was honest with her and from what he's said she feels comfortable that he is seeing his nephew whilst living with us (albeit always supervised) She is an HR manager and deals with tricky people stuff all the time and is no fool so I trust her judgment and it's made me feel a tiny bit better.
Anyway, just wanted to say hello and that you're not alone. I hope you have some people you can talk to (the LFF has a helpline I think) who you trust. Another difficulty for me has been seeing friends and not being transparent with them as obviously this isn't something you want to share with too many people. But I do have a cousin and an old friend who I trust and they are being Godsends to me when I feel panicky. My husband and I do talk about it a lot but obviously we're both emotionally charged by it all and sometimes it's not helpful and we get stuck in feeling full of despair.
I hope you get some more helpful replies to your post but just wanted to say hello!