My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in the later stage of debates on this important Bill, and to move Amendment 48. I thank my noble friend Lady Hodgson and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, for their support, and particularly my noble friend the Minister for adding his name to this amendment. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Crawley and Lady Grey-Thompson, who supported the amendment that I tabled in Committee, and I thank all the Ministers involved in the Bill, in this House and in the House of Commons, for their engagement on the issue of criminalising the threat of sharing intimate images.
I pay tribute to Refuge, particularly its tech abuse team, who first identified this as an issue, and to those brave survivors who have spoken out about the toll that the sharing of images and the threat of sharing images has taken on them. They have been very clear about the devastating long-term impact on their lives. If any noble Lord or anyone watching this debate has any doubt about that, I recommend that they watch the very powerful film that the survivor Zara McDermott has made about this, which was released within the last month.
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I suspect that I am not alone in this House in often being asked what the House of Lords actually does. This amendment and the debate around it provide a very good example of how this House makes a real difference to the lives of our fellow citizens. An issue of harm was identified; a suitable legislative opportunity was spotted; an amendment was tabled and debated, and the Government have listened and accepted the arguments that were made. I very much welcome the Government’s support for Amendment 48 and the consequential amendments, which will extend the offence of disclosing intimate images with the intent to cause distress to cover threats to share those intimate images. It will make a significant difference to the 4.4 million people in England and Wales, including the one in seven young women, who have experienced this form of abuse.
These women have lived with the impact of the threat to share, often for many years, with little, if any, police support. The impacts include panic attacks for a fifth of women, suicidal ideation for 10% of women, and an increased risk of physical harm for one in seven women. Women are also changing their behaviours, as I said in my speech in Committee, often including going back to their abusers, granting them access to children or changing their evidence.
It was discussed in Committee that the Law Commission would be publishing proposals for further reform of image-based abuse offences. That report has
now been published, and it highlights a number of further issues to be explored. I very much look forward to working to improve the law more broadly on image-based abuse and increasing protections for survivors. The report looks at the motivation element of both disclosure of and, now, threats to disclose intimate images. Currently, in order to be a crime, the intent to cause distress must be proved, and the commission has rightly pointed out that that is often difficult. It provisionally recommends amending the intent element of the offence because abusers often have motivations additional to the intent to cause distress, such as causing humiliation, taking revenge or smearing the reputation of survivors, which ought to be captured in the criminal law.
The Law Commission report also examines culturally specific elements of what might constitute an intimate image, which are not captured in various abuse laws. This requires careful investigation to ensure that no woman can be abused by the exposure or threatened exposure of what she and her community might judge to be intimate and to ensure that all women are protected.
Then, of course, we need to address the creation of deepfakes or photoshopped images, where images are altered to make it look like the survivors are the subject of the photo or video. They are commonly in pornographic materials, and not yet adequately covered in law. However, let us make no mistake: Amendment 48 and the creation of a new offence of threatening to disclose a private sexual image with the intent to cause distress is a significant step forward for the millions of women who have experienced this deeply distressing form of domestic abuse.
As I said in Committee, at the moment the police and others, such as the Crown Prosecution Service, are often not clear about which offence the threat to share could be prosecuted under. That is why I and many other noble Lords were keen that this amendment be accepted. Amendment 48 could give the police, the CPS and the wider criminal justice system the legal tools they need to investigate and prosecute a significant proportion of these threats, and offer women the protection and peace of mind they need to move on. That is especially true if the proposed remedy includes the deletion of the images from the perpetrator’s devices, so I strongly encourage the Government to look into that and adopt that proposal. I also encourage the Government to ensure that the police and the CPS have the training they need to thoroughly investigate and prosecute these crimes, and to ensure that these agencies and the specialist services that support survivors have the resources they need to ensure that survivors can achieve justice.
Although there is clearly more to follow, given the Law Commission’s recently published consultation on taking action against intimate image-based abuse, I am very pleased that the Government have not waited but have taken heed of the arguments that I and other noble Lords have made. The tech is not waiting, and the abusers are not waiting to cause these devastating impacts. I am very pleased to commend these amendments, which I hope will secure the support of the House.