Students warned about the legal consequences of sexting in wake of filmed teen sex assault

EASTERN suburbs students have been warned about the legal consequences of filming and sharing sexual images at a cybercrime workshop.

Students at Rose Bay Secondary College were warned about the legal consequences of sexting at a workshop earlier this month.

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STUDENTS at Rose Bay Secondary College were warned about the legal consequences of filming and sharing sexual images at a cybercrime workshop.

It comes after a Year 10 student at the College allegedly filmed a Cranbrook student sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl at a house party in March.

He has pleaded not guilty to filming, producing and disseminating the footage, which was shared among schoolboys on social media.

Rachael Martin, who is the school liaison police officer for the eastern suburbs, said she did not address the incident specifically but discussed issues pertinent to the case.

A student from Rose Bay Secondary College has pleaded not guilty to filming the sexual assault of a teenage girl and sharing the video on social media.

Sen Cont Martin gave presentation to about 200 year nine and ten students with a focus on cyber bulling earlier this month.

She said this often involves “sexting”, when students forward naked or sexualised images of each other through social media, email, texts or apps such as Skype or Snapchat.

“It often starts off quite innocent with a young girl sending an image of herself to a boy and then she ends up being a victim of bullying when he forwards it onto his friends,” said Senior Constable Martin.

She said Snapchat was “the worst” medium because children often falsely believed the images would be deleted as they disappear off the screen after ten seconds.

The 15-year-old boy who is alleged to have raped the girl was a student at Cranbrook School at the time.

“Kids often don’t understand there are legal ramifications for that and so we tell them those images can be investigated by police as they fall into (the category of) child pornography.”

“We talked about sharing images from parties and that it’s an offence if they film acts of a sexual nature or of drug use.”

Sen Const. Martin said teenagers often did not “think through” the consequences, which could affect their careers if they ended up with a criminal history.

She also spoke to the students about consent at the request of teachers.

“We talked about how it is not legal for them to have sex if they are under the age of 16,” she said.

“And if a person is not in a fit condition to agree to a sexual act, if they are intoxicated or under the influence of drugs, they can’t legally give consent.”

The 15-year-old victim is a student at SCEGGS, Darlinghurst.

Sources told the Wentworth Courier the school had also developed units to specifically address the incident as part of this term’s PDHPE program.

Students in years seven to 10 will be told about consent, safe partying, harm minimisation and looking out for one another.

Sen Const. Margin said social media had compounded the scourge of bullying because it facilitated a larger audience.

“Bullying has always been around but now because of social media, it’s 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week.

“It used to be confined to an individual group or school but now everyone can get involved — parents, older siblings and cousins so it’s not just 15-year-olds having words with each other anymore.

“And people tend to be more graphic and verbal because they don’t have to say it to the person’s face.”