Meeting of the Parliament 22 March 2016
Amendment 29, in the name of Elaine Murray, seeks to close a potential loophole in the operation of one of the defences to the intimate images offence. We are happy to support the amendment.
The defence at section 2(5) of the bill currently operates such that, where the image or film that has been shared was taken in a public place where
“members of the public were present”,
there is a defence that means that the accused will not be convicted. That is to avoid a situation in which someone shares without consent a film or image of a person streaking at a sporting event, for example, and a criminal complaint is made to the police. In that situation, we do not think that a criminal offence should have been committed by the sharing of such an image or photo.
The effect of amendment 29 will be that the “public place” defence is not available where a person was in an
“intimate situation as a result of a deliberate act of another person to which”
they “did not agree”. The “public place” defence will not be available where a person has distributed an image showing, for example, the subject of a photograph or film who has been stripped against their will or sexually assaulted in a public place.
Amendment 29 will close the loophole that arose from the way in which the defence was previously crafted. I thank Elaine Murray for lodging amendment 29, and I urge the Parliament to support it.
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