Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

This is about more than law; it is about a culture, and saying with one voice that violence is not intimacy and harm is not entertainment. This is a moment to protect women and girls particularly, because it disproportionately affects them, but as someone said in an earlier debate: a big shout-out for the fact that men are also affected by this violence and, obviously, this violent porn. We need to build an online world that reflects our values, not our worst instincts.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

I too would like to thank the Government for these amendments, because helplines have seen a rise in non-fatal strangulation offences, and not everything gets reported to the police. We have seen a rise at the charity that I run, the Muslim Women’s Network helpline. Research shows that if a victim is subject to a non-fatal strangulation, they are seven times more likely to be a victim of domestic homicide. Analysis of the domestic homicide data shows that strangulation is one of the two main methods of killing women. I hope that the long-term trend, once these amendments are introduced, will be a decline in these types of offences being reported on helplines. I commend the Government.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, these dangerous practices of strangulation and suffocation are often used to control, intimidate and silence in domestic abuse situations. The growing normalisation of strangulation during sex risks giving abusers a veneer of acceptability and a false sense of impunity. Strangulation was the cause of death of over a quarter of the women killed between 2014 and 2025—about 550 in total. In that context, the case for criminalising such images is compelling. Mainstream platforms must be put under a duty to remove this material or face sanction.

The related amendments in this group are welcome, in order to ensure that the new offences operate coherently across England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We on these Benches very much support this group of amendments, which sends a clear signal that such material is totally unacceptable.

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[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my support to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. Since she arrived in your Lordships’ House, she has made the issue of online abuse her passion and her life’s work, and for that I congratulate her. These amendments deal with intimate image abuse, spiking, domestic abuse and the online abuse of women, by and large. Although there are many positive attributes of the internet and online and digital technology, there are also the downsides and how it is used as a weapon of abuse. Will the Minister see what she can do with her ministerial colleagues in the Home Department to try to accept some of these amendments by way of government amendments on Report? They are worthy of inclusion in this Bill.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I was unable to speak at Second Reading about the amendments to which I have added my name. I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, for her persistence in pursuing the issues that she raised about a year ago. I highlighted the problem of sexually explicit audio recordings during the debate on her Non-Consensual Sexually Explicit Images and Videos (Offences) Bill. I am therefore thankful that she has brought forward amendments to this Bill to address audio abuse. I too admire her tenacity. I fully support everything that she has said today.

I will speak specifically about audio abuse and those amendments. Although I commend the Government on strengthening the law relating to non-consensual recording of intimate images and film, I cannot understand why audio has been excluded. It appears as though the Government wish to wait for there to be a significant number of cases before taking action, but why wait? How many cases do we need? It should surely be enough to recognise that this abuse is already occurring and that it can easily escalate further. Intimate audio can easily be captured on mobile phones. We can clearly foresee the consequences of sharing such recordings and how they can be used to humiliate and intimidate, and cause alarm and distress, because voices are recognisable. As I indicated last year, the helpline that my charity, Muslim Women’s Network, runs has had cases, and the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, gave examples of cases, so how many more do we need?

We are perpetually playing catch-up when it comes to responding to new forms of abuse. Perhaps for once we can get ahead of the problem before audio abuse becomes widespread. I want to borrow a phrase from my noble friend Lady Kidron, who said we should lay the tracks ahead of the train—or something like that. Today, time and again we have heard that the Government need to be one step ahead. The question is why they do not want to be one step ahead on so many of the amendments we are talking about today. As legislation around image abuse tightens, perpetrators will inevitably look for other avenues through which they can control, threaten and shame victims. I therefore urge the Minister to address intimate audio recordings in this Bill.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Owen, which have been signed by noble Lords across the Committee. I welcome the Government’s Amendment 300 to extend the time limit for the sharing offence, which my noble friend’s amendments also seek to do.

My noble friend’s amendments on deletion, audio abuse, doxing, semen images and the definition of “taking” already aim to deal with activity that is, sadly, on the rise, and to recognise the real trauma that these activities cause the victims—trauma that sadly continues long after the initial offence. The technology around non-consensual images is very complicated, but we have some precedents where solutions have been found elsewhere. I am particularly interested to hear from the Minister on two issues: the 48-hour takedown, which we seen happen in the US, and the hash registry and hash sharing—I was grateful to my noble friend for setting out so clearly what they do. It strikes me as a bit chicken and egg here. The tech is there, but we need to demand progress in order to see progress.

Extending pre-existing domestic abuse protection orders would recognise another development that we are sadly witnessing, with perpetrators using the online world to further their abuse. Taking this opportunity to extend the scope of domestic protection orders will help stop this form of abuse and reflect the reality of the digital age that we are living in.

Technology is rapidly evolving, as we have heard in the example of audio abuse. It is a challenge to ensure that our legislation continues to be fit for purpose, but that is what these amendments seek to do, and in some cases to future-proof it as well. Non-consensual intimate images are an escalating harm. These amendments address critical operational gaps and work towards the systemic protection that we should have in this area.