Today the Government has announced that threatening to share intimate images will become a crime under the Domestic Abuse Bill. Offenders could face up to 2 years in prison.
Since last year, I have been working with campaigner Natasha Saunders to convince Ministers to include the ‘threats to share’ amendment in the bill. Natasha is a survivor of domestic abuse whose former husband used threats to share intimate images of her as a means of control. She is now working with Refuge and has been leading their Naked Threat campaign, which found 1 in 7 young women have experienced these threats. I spoke about Natasha’s story in Parliament last year which you can find here.
Because of the bravery of women like Natasha, many more people will now be protected from threats to share their most intimate and private moments. This new law will make what has been a tool which abusers use to control their victims a criminal offence.
In addition, Amendments to the Domestic Abuse Bill now before Parliament will also create an offence of ‘non-fatal strangulation’, with up to five years in jail for abusers who restrict someone’s breathing. Further changes will allow vulnerable victims to give evidence from behind a screen or on video in civil courts dealing with some aspects of abuse.
Since ‘revenge porn’ laws were first introduced in 2015, more than 900 abusers have been convicted, but this type of abuse is ever-evolving so we must have legislation that is up-to-date. In addition to progressing my ‘J9: Protecting Survivors of Domestic Abuse’ campaign, I will continue working with campaigners like Natasha to fight all forms of domestic abuse.