Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Morris of Bolton and Baroness Kennedy of Shaws

Monday 21st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, it is important that this proposed new clause is drawn with real care. While I hear the discussions about the motivation to degrade and humiliate or to secure sexual gratification, it is important to draft widely without specifying the nature of the motivation. That is because it is always difficult to pin down motivation. A case in Canada is currently attracting a great deal of public attention in which a woman judge has been suspended from the judiciary while an inquiry takes place because her husband put on to the web images of her that had been taken in intimacy.

The concern for the judiciary is that this undermines her authority in the courtroom, because these images are available. It is, if you like, bringing the judiciary into disrepute. The consequences for her life are therefore considerable. It is an interesting and rather difficult debate in Canada. She has remained with her husband and seems to have forgiven him for his transgression, but the issue has moved beyond the pair in the relationship to be an issue of public concern.

I urge that we think about the implications of the drafting. In Canada, a woman’s career has been held in abeyance. She has remained in a marriage because of her commitment to it, but certainly it is causing problems. It is really an issue about consent: has a person consented to the disclosure of intimate photographs? It is not an issue of speculating about what the motivations might be.

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Berridge set out strongly the case for Amendment 40 with which I am associated—namely that the appalling act of revenge pornography should be a serious sexual offence. I take on board what my noble friend Lord Marks and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said about the drafting. Neither of us would seek to be draftsmen, but we should make sure that we capture whatever needs to be captured in these amendments.

I was unable to speak at Second Reading but this is a matter that concerns me and rightly concerns many in your Lordships’ House. The issue is how we address that concern. The amendments brought forward by my noble friend Lord Marks would classify the online posting of revenge pornography as an ordinary criminal offence. This fails to recognise the sexual nature of the crime and the impact that it has on the victim, which is a clear violation of the victim’s dignity. Further, this failure to recognise the gravity of the sexual offence leads to an unduly lenient penalty, allowing for imprisonment for no more than 12 months. The courts must have adequate sentencing powers to reflect the severity of this act. For these reasons, I press strongly for this crime to be classified as a sexual offence.

Revenge is a horrible and destructive motive generally, driven as it is by anger, malice and cruel calculation. Perpetrators choose many ways to pursue their revenge, such as harassment, stalking, humiliation through social media by posting malevolent or hurtful comments or spreading rumours concerning work, family or finances in order to ruin reputations. But the greatest betrayal is to choose to use naked or sexually explicit images that should be a private and deeply personal matter between a couple and which were never intended to be seen by anybody else. In this way, the perpetrator commits an act of sexual abuse against the ex-partner, specifically designed to subject them to humiliation and degradation.

If we look at the criminal offence of sexual assault under Section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, we see that:

“A person (A) commits an offence if he intentionally touches another person (B) … the touching is sexual … B does not consent to the touching and … A does not reasonably believe that B consents”.

To my mind the posting of revenge pornography online is in essence a virtual form of sexual assault since the perpetrator is intentionally posting the naked or sexually explicit image without the subject’s consent, the posting of the image is sexual in nature, the subject does not consent to the posting and the perpetrator does not reasonably believe that the subject of the image consents.

Victims of revenge pornography face extraordinary difficulties, as we have heard, in trying to have their photographs taken down from websites set up specifically to display this type of material. Clearly criminalising this type of activity should give an incentive to internet service providers and search engines to take material down. As things stand, some victims have had to pay so-called fees of hundreds of dollars to host websites based in the United States just to have their photograph taken down from the site.

The law needs to set out clear boundaries about what is and what is not acceptable behaviour, including sexual behaviour. As technologies change, we need to ensure that we keep up with changes in behaviour. This is why we should take this opportunity to recognise revenge pornography as a sexual offence.