Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox of Newport.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab) [V]]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for bringing this much-needed amendment to the House and recognising that the changes that have occurred in the past few decades, since the widespread introduction of mobile phone technologies and social media coverage, have irreversibly changed the way in which we communicate. The inherent dangers of the misuse of that communication have become increasingly prevalent. As the noble Baroness said, we are living our lives online, and today’s debate is into its ninth hour.

As a former teacher of media studies, I taught my students that the medium is the message—but, like many of my colleagues, I had no idea at that time how exploitative the medium would become. The key element to this amendment is that the Bill as it stands does not do enough to ensure that survivors of technology-facilitated abuse have sufficient protection in the criminal law. Threats to share intimate or sexual images and films are an increasingly common tool of coercive control that can have enormous negative impacts on survivors of abuse. While the sharing of intimate and sexual images without consent is a crime, threatening to share is not, leaving survivors of this form of abuse without the protection of the criminal law.

During my reading for this topic, I was powerfully moved by a key report, Shattering Lives and Myths, by Professor Clare McGlynn and others at Durham Law School. This was launched at the Supreme Court last year, and it sets out the appalling consequences to victims of intimate images being posted without consent on the internet. Nearly half of the victim-survivors the researchers spoke to had experienced threats to share nude or sexual images and videos without consent. While many of these threats were followed by non-consensual sharing, there must be a recognition that threats to share such images can in and of themselves have significant life-threatening impacts.

The domestic abuse commissioner designate has also supported this addition to the law, saying:

“The threat to share an intimate image … is an insidious and powerful way that perpetrators of domestic abuse seek to control their victims, and yet the law does not provide the protection that is needed. Threats to share these images play on fear and shame, and can be particularly dangerous where there might be multiple perpetrators or so-called ‘honour-based’ abuse is a factor. What’s more, the advent of new technologies enables perpetrators to make these threats even where such images do not exist, but there is no clear criminal sanction for this behaviour.”


Lack of support leaves victim-survivors isolated, often attempting to navigate alone an unfamiliar, complex and shifting terrain of legal provisions and online regulation. There needs to be a recognition in the Bill that image-based sexual abuse is a sexual offence, and an adoption of a comprehensive criminal law to cover all forms of image-based sexual abuse, including threats.

The Domestic Abuse Bill is the most appropriate vehicle to make this change: victims and survivors would benefit almost immediately, and it would help them in preventing further abuse and getting away from their perpetrator. This amendment can close that gap in the law, and I urge its support in this Committee.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I will start with the point made by my noble friend Lady Bertin. It is of course late; I am conscious of that. But I have to say that it is worth staying up late to hear the debate we have just had, with the quality of the contributions to which we have all just listened. Therefore, I will take a little time—I hope not too long—to respond to the debate, because this is obviously a very important issue.

I listened with great care to the way in which the amendment was presented and explained by the four noble Baronesses who proposed it. My noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes explained in detail how the threat to disclose such images can lead women to give way on matters that are of the utmost importance, whether that be contact with children or telling the perpetrator where they are now living. The story of Natasha that she shared was powerful and was added to by the stories of Rachel and Alison, which we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley. It is right to say, as my noble friend Lady Morgan put it, that this is an issue essentially of timing and not necessarily of principle. I will come back to that point a little later.