My Lords, I added my name to Amendments 37, 38 and 39 and I shall not repeat the very good points made by my noble friends Lord Marks and Lady Grender. I shall start from the point at which my noble friend Lady Grender ended: namely, the activities among our teenagers and very young adults which may not always be fully sexually explicit, and certainly may not be intended to be pornographic. A large number of students both in schools and colleges are being asked by their boyfriends or sometimes—though it is unlikely—girlfriends to have photographs taken of them which I am afraid are being used against them. The noble Baronesses, Lady Berridge and Lady Morris, made valid points about the distinction between different types of photograph. It may be that that will be addressed in the discussion that I hope the Minister will have with those who have put forward both sets of amendments.
The principle in our amendments is clear: that the crime is the publication of those photographs or other electronic media, because it is that over which the person in the photograph feels they completely lack control. It is used as a form of abuse. Increasingly what is used as a key element in cases of stalking—indeed this morning there is a case in the paper for which a court date has just been set in December in Scotland—is the threat to publish not only publicly but also among family and friends. The key point of our amendment is that when it becomes a tool of abuse, that in itself should become a crime.
Because this is about making a law, there is, understandably, little focus on the victim. I will highlight the work that the NSPCC and ChildLine have been doing with young people. They have a very good app called Zipit that is intended to teach secondary school pupils how to respond if their boyfriend or girlfriend asks them for a photograph that is inappropriate, using silly photographs and silly text underneath that might say something like, “You’re having a laugh”. That is beginning to work. The work that PSHE staff are doing in schools to make young people understand the dangers of this are vital if we are not to end up with a generation of young people thinking that it is acceptable to play at this. When they get into stronger relationships where they may have a partner over some period of time it will be second nature; then, if they want to get their own back, we will end up in a position where these sexually explicit photographs start to be exported.
I am concerned that one thing that we have not looked at is the circulation of the image after initial publication. There has been some discussion online about trolling and about abuse of the victims by
others. I hope that the Minister will be prepared to look at this. It may be difficult to pin down who has circulated the image but we have seen, in recent cases of trolling, that people who have recirculated offensive and defamatory literature can be taken to court for continued publication. That should also be true in this case.