Victim Support NI welcome new sexual offences legislation
Victim Support NI welcomes the implementation of the third and final stage of The Justice (Sexual Offences & Trafficking Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. A number of new offences including “up-skirting”, “down-blousing” and “cyber-flashing” come into effect today, Monday 27th November 2023.
These new offences have been introduced to combat a range of crimes which have become more prevalent in recent years, due to advances in technology. In addition, some of the other new legislation strengthens existing laws and gives victims extended protections.
From today it is a criminal offence to partake in ‘up-skirting’ or ‘down-blousing’, activities. These involve observing or recording another person’s genitals, buttocks, breasts or underwear without that person’s consent. It is also now an offence to intentionally send an image of genitals or sexual activity to another person without that person’s consent. This is known as cyber-flashing and commonly takes place in places where groups of people are gathered together. The police have reported a ‘significant’ number of these crimes happening on public transport in cities across NI.
New legislation has also been introduced to make it a criminal offence for adults to pretend to be a child online to communicate with children under 16. This behaviour often occurs with the intention of establishing a relationship in order to groom children.
Other ‘abuse of position of trust’ offences have been strengthened. These tackle adults who have a position of trust and knowingly coach, teach, train, supervise or instruct children in the area of sport and religion with the intention of abusing that trust. The existing offence of disclosing a private sexual photograph and film with intent to cause distress, commonly known as ‘revenge porn’, has now been extended to make it an offence to threaten to disclose these photographs or videos.
All these offences now carry a maximum sentence of 2 years in prison, and those with a sexual intention can also lead to the perpetrators being placed on the sex offenders register.
Victim Support NI welcomes the recognition of the criminality of these activities, many of which target young people in particular. As technology advances, it is important that the law keeps up with criminal activities that develop as a result of these progressions in tech. These new offences help to reassure victims that the perpetrators of such crimes are in the wrong. The establishment of the offences also help to reassure victims that they will be taken seriously when they report such crimes to police. Many of these crimes involve images of an intimate nature, which can make the victim feel shame or embarrassment. This can then lead to them not seeking help or support as they feel too ashamed to talk about what happened. Support is available, and there is no blame to be attached to the victims in any of these crimes. It is always the fault of the perpetrator. We hope that efforts to improve and address RSE in schools and the current strategy to tackle Violence Against Women & Girls, in conjunction with these new laws, will go some way to addressing the issues in society which make perpetrators think it is OK to commit such crimes.
If you would like to speak to someone in confidence about one of these crimes, please contact us at either of our Hubs in Belfast and Foyle. Belfast 028 9024 3133, Foyle 028 7137 0086. You can report any such crimes to police on the 101 number, or 999 if you feel you are in immediate danger.