http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22726004
UK government advisor John Carr, of the Council on Child Internet Safety, claims in a radio interview:
Mr Carr said there was "no question" that some men who look at child sex abuse images go on to carry out abuse.
Earlier, speaking to BBC Radio 5 live he said: "There is enough evidence to suggest that if we can put more barriers towards guys getting to child abuse images, fewer of them will do it and more children will be safe."
He said between 15 and 50 per cent of men who previously had no involvement with child abuse images would go on to physically harm children once they accessed them.
That sentence claims correlation, not necessarily causation. But let's ask the question twice: once for correlation, once for the implied causation.
- Is there evidence that >15% of men exposed to child pornography, physically harm children?
- Is there evidence that exposure to child pornography leads to this harm being committed (that is, is there evidence that these assaults would not have happened if the culprit had not consumed child pornography)