Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 390 in my name, to which my noble friend Lord Blencathra has added his own. He is an exceptional champion of animal welfare and it is an honour, as always, to have his support.

First, I shall speak to government Amendment 301. I am grateful to the Minister for her remarks. As she said, we had a good debate on this subject in Committee—also quite late at night, if I recall. The Government clearly listened carefully to the arguments and to the strength of feeling in the House and have acted on that. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me—along with my colleagues from across the sector, especially, as she said, David Martin and Paula Boyden, to whom I pay tribute for their tireless work and insight—to discuss these issues in some depth, and to her officials who have worked on this. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, has also been extremely supportive and helpful.

I welcome the Government’s amendment, which goes a long way to dealing with the issues I highlighted in Committee and supported. This is a really important step forward, both in terms of animal welfare and in recognising the link between animal sexual abuse—ASA—and domestic abuse and violence. There are one or two matters on which I would just like briefly to press the Minister.

First, it is disappointing that there are no powers of disqualification for individuals convicted of ASA or specific powers to deprive the offender of any animals they own at the time of their conviction. The best way to protect animals is to ensure that those inclined to commit such despicable crimes are banned from owning them or having access to them. The Minister may argue that this would follow on from a sexual harm prevention order but, as I understand it, such orders are available only if the court imposes a custodial sentence of two years or more, and the vast majority of these cases will not meet that threshold.

There may be other mechanisms through which a perpetrator could be deprived of the ownership of the animal they abused, but that will require the courts to remember to do this, and that cannot always be taken for granted. The best way to ensure that is to have something on the face of this legislation but, perhaps, if that is not possible, the Minister could kindly make clear the Government’s intentions in this area, for future reference.

Secondly, it is unfortunate that there is a discrepancy between the maximum sentence for physical animal abuse, which is five years, and for ASA, which will be set at two years. This could be said to convey the message that animal sexual abuse is less of a crime than physical animal abuse. I am absolutely sure that that is not what the Government intend, so again perhaps the Minister could just clarify the reasons for the discrepancy.

Thirdly, the amendment does not deal comprehensively with the issues around the possession and sharing of animal pornography, and here too there are no powers of disqualification or deprivation for imagery offences involving ASA.

These are technical points, but they are none the less very important and I would be very grateful if we could get the Minister’s views on the record. Ideally, there may be some way of sorting them out at Third Reading and the Minister and her officials would have my strong support in doing so. Having said all that, I am not going to make the perfect the enemy of the best. This amendment is real progress in dealing with this vile crime of animal sexual abuse and I am very grateful to the Government.

I turn to my Amendment 390, on a linked subject, which seeks to create notification requirements for people convicted of animal cruelty. It is analogous in many ways to the requirements relating to the sex offenders register. As we discussed in Committee, there is a real and frightening link between cruelty towards animals and violence towards a partner. As domestic abuse charities have consistently made clear, those who maim or kill animals often go on to become involved in incidents of domestic violence and, in the worst cases, murder.

One of the early warning signs of an abusive partner is the way they treat pets, which is why it is one of the questions on the DASH—domestic abuse, stalking and harassment—risk assessment routinely used by police across the UK to determine a victim’s risk of further harm. The evidence is as overwhelming and alarming as it is painful to read. Pets are often the first to be abused and harmed as perpetrators of domestic abuse seek to coerce, control or punish. Research undertaken by Refuge4Pets, which does wonderful work in this area in association with Dogs Trust, found that almost nine in 10 households which experienced domestic abuse said that their animals were also abused by the perpetrator. In 49% of cases, animals, appallingly and tragically, are killed by the abuser. A study by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Northeastern University found that animal abusers are five times as likely also to harm humans. Unsurprisingly, 70% of people who have committed animal abuse also have criminal records for violence, property or drugs offences, or disorderly behaviour.

Beyond these statistics, horrific though they are on their own, is the very real human face of the victims, one of whom was a lady called Holly Bramley. Holly was murdered at the age of just 26 by her husband, Nicholas Metson, in 2023. The following year, Metson was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison. Before she was so tragically robbed of her life, Holly was subjected to horrendous abuse by Metson, who had also been reported to the police for repeated extreme cruelty to her beloved pets. That was a red flag for the tragic events that followed, if only anyone had known about it.

Holly’s courageous mother, Annette Bramley, is now campaigning for a new nationwide protection register to identify those who have been found guilty of cruelty to animals in a bid to stop this sort of tragedy ever happening again. As Annette has said:

“Had there been a register with his name on there that we could have looked at, perhaps Holly might be here today”.


This campaign for what is dubbed Holly’s law is already backed by a petition with 50,000 signatures on it. The Member for South Holland and The Deepings in the other place, Sir John Hayes, has been a strong campaigner for action. I pay tribute to the tenacious work that he has been doing in gathering support from across the political spectrum for something to be done.

I know that the Government recognise the link between animal abuse, particularly of pets, and domestic violence. I therefore very much hope that, despite what the Minister has said, they will see the strength of this amendment, which would provide a vital resource for both individuals like Holly and their families, who may be in danger, and for law enforcement. It is a simple change that could help thousands of potential victims and ensure that no more families like Holly’s tragically have to suffer the same anguish because vital signs are missed.

I hear what the Minister has said, and I take her points on board. I hope that she might think again about this at some point. I am not going to take this any further forward this evening. If she is unable to do so as part of this Bill, maybe we could look at it again with regard to measures that come out of the Government’s animal welfare strategy in due course. I am very grateful to the Government for the action that has been taken.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, we should at least be grateful that we are dealing with this matter well after the dinner break. I support my noble friend’s amendment. I also support government Amendment 301. It is a big improvement on the current law, but I am very disappointed that it omits some of the essential features of the proposed new clause in the original Amendment 316 that my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood had advocated for.

The Minister is a very talented lawyer, an excellent addition to this House and a nice person to boot. Her amendment is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who is also incredibly able and almost as nice as the Minister. So I am being brave, or rather suicidal, when I say that these two lawyers have missed some of the crucial points in Amendment 301, as opposed to the proposed new clause in my noble friend’s original amendment. It seems that the government amendment is punishing people only for the perversion of the crime itself and not for the cruelty to the animal concerned.

Rather than continuing to say “the proposed new clause in the original amendment from my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood”, I will simply refer to it as Amendment 316, which was its number in the Marshalled List in Committee. Amendment 316 would have not only criminalised sexual activity with animals but treated the conduct as an animal welfare matter. It would have given courts express powers to remove animals from offenders, direct their disposal, rehoming or destruction, and make disqualification orders tied to the Animal Welfare Act.

Government Amendment 301 criminalises sexual activity and touching but does not include those explicit welfare remedies or the statutory link to the Animal Welfare Act. Amendment 316 had a built-in mechanism for disqualification orders for owning, keeping, dealing in or transporting animals, and would have required those orders to be treated

“as if made under section 34 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006”.

Government Amendment 301 contains no parallel disqualification provisions, so an offender convicted under that amendment will not automatically be subject to the same statutory animal control prohibitions unless other legislation applies. Later in my remarks I shall come to the Animal Welfare Act and say why it is not adequate to deal with this problem.

Amendment 316 would have expressly allowed courts to make offenders subject to notification requirements and tied in amendments to the Sexual Offences Act and the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act for images. Government Amendment 301 changes the wording elsewhere, replacing “intercourse” with “sexual activity”, but the core text does not set out the same notification on image-related court powers.

Amendment 316 explicitly amended the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 to add images of sexual activity with animals and attach the same animal welfare disqualification remedies to convictions for those image offences. Amendment 301 does not include those parallel amendments.

We now come to the crux of the matter: the penalties. Amendment 316 carried higher maximum custodial sentences—up to five years on indictment—and therefore signals a higher statutory seriousness and sentencing range than Amendment 301, which is up to just two years on indictment. However, when we look at sexual activity with a corpse in government Amendment 302, we see that the maximum penalty will be raised to seven years, if I am right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Black, Lord Blencathra, Lord Pannick and Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for welcoming the Government amendments today and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for the flattering remarks that he made which were very welcome after a long day in your Lordships’ House. I am pleased to hear that the amendments have this support and, once again, I thank those who raised this with us in Committee.

This new offence is focused solely on strengthening the criminal offence relating to sexual abuse of animals, given the scope of this Bill. To establish this offence, the new offence that the Government are bringing today, the prosecution does not have to prove that the animal actually suffered, because this was sometimes an obstacle to prosecutions in the past. This was something that we were persuaded of during the meetings with the noble Lord and those who came with him. Where the conduct has caused the animal to suffer, the defendant can be charged with an offence under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, for which orders such as removing the animal from the offender’s ownership, rehoming or destroying the animal, or disqualifying the offender from keeping animals are available. It is not either or—they can both be charged at the same time. It is quite common with criminal behaviour.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

The Minister says that the accused could be charged. Charged and prosecuted by whom?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

Although the RSPCA conventionally prosecutes, there is nothing to stop the Crown Prosecution Service from prosecuting. If you had conduct that fell within both, you would not have two separate prosecutors bringing two separate sets of proceedings; it would be the Crown Prosecution Service for both. However, I understand the concerns. I am committing to continuing to engage with parliamentarians and key stakeholders on this issue. We will keep it under consideration.

As far as animal pornography is concerned—obviously a great worry to everybody—the offence of possession of extreme pornographic images under Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 already criminalises possession of pornographic images depicting extreme acts, which includes intercourse or oral sex with an animal, whether living or dead. We do not believe that further legislation is necessary.

Turning to the question of sentence, the current offence of intercourse with an animal carries a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment, which we will retain for the new offence. We do not have evidence at the moment that this is insufficient to enable the courts to deal appropriately with offending of this nature, but we know that, when animal suffering occurs, there are higher penalties available under the animal cruelty legislation, which—as has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra—provides sentences of up to five years’ imprisonment. Once again, we will engage with parliamentarians and key stakeholders as to how the existing animal cruelty offences operate alongside the new offence. With that in mind, I invite the noble Lord, Lord Black, to withdraw—

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I am sorry for holding the House back this late at night. The Minister says that there is nothing to stop the CPS prosecuting for animal cruelty if it is prosecuting a case of sex with an animal and discovers cruelty. In that case, will she guarantee that the CPS will issue guidance to all its prosecutors that, where a prosecutor is prosecuting for animal sexual abuse and discovers animal cruelty, he or she will automatically prosecute it and not wait for the RPSCA to do it God knows when?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The difficulty is that the Crown Prosecution Service, as a matter of constitutional convention, is independent of the Government and does not take well to being told what to do by them. However, we can raise this with it and ask whether it will look at it again. I beg to move.