Lawyers and women’s-rights organisations have submitted a police super-complaint alleging that forces in England and Wales routinely mishandle reports of non-consensual intimate-image abuse. The complaint describes serious problems, but its claims have not been independently adjudicated: as of 7 October 2026, the College of Policing and the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) were considering whether to respond with a wider investigation.
What the complaint says—and what it does not establish
#NotYourPorn and the Centre for Women’s Justice submitted the super-complaint. Leigh Day, which represents #NotYourPorn, says the submission draws on more than 100 survivor accounts, including 23 detailed case studies spanning 17 police forces, as well as an anonymous survey, police data, input from frontline organisations and academic research.
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The complaint characterises the response as “fragmented, inconsistent and incapable of meeting the scale of the threat posed by image-based abuse.” Its allegations include officers failing to identify the relevant offence, missing links to domestic abuse or coercive control, delays and poor communication, victim-blaming language, early case closures and limited referrals to specialist support. It also says some survivors were left to gather evidence or pursue image takedowns themselves. These are reported concerns in the complainants’ submission, not findings that every force acted this way.
The Guardian’s 7 October 2026 report includes survivor accounts of dismissive responses. One person said an officer “almost giggled on the phone to me”; other comments attributed to officers included “Boys will be boys” and “I bet you’ve learned your lesson.” These are survivor-reported remarks reproduced by the newspaper, not independently verified transcripts. A survivor quoted in Leigh Day’s release described the experience this way: “It felt like, to them, it wasn’t a priority, it wasn’t even a crime.”
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The complaint concludes: “The unavoidable conclusion is that the overwhelming majority of this offending goes unaddressed.” That is the complainants’ assessment. The review outcome was not available in the reporting published on 7 October 2026, so it remains unresolved whether the College of Policing or IOPC will open a wider investigation or what any such investigation might conclude.
What the reported figures measure
The figures cited in the reports point to a substantial problem, but they describe different units and cannot be combined into a single progression from report to conviction.
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| Figure | What it measures | Attribution and qualification |
|---|---|---|
| 24,786 in 2025, compared with 521 in 2015 | Reports to the Revenge Porn Helpline | Helpline figures reported by Leigh Day in 2026; these are not police crime reports. |
| 98.9% in 2025 | Share of Revenge Porn Helpline reports made by women | Helpline figures reported by Leigh Day in 2026; this is not a measure of all people affected. |
| 4.5% average, with some forces below 1% | Charging rate in data from 39 police forces for the preceding year | Police-force data reported by The Guardian in 2026. The 39-force sample should not be treated as all forces in England and Wales. |
| 569 in 2025/26 | Charges issued for image-based abuse | Home Office data reported by The Guardian in 2026; this is a separate count and period from the 4.5% figure. |
A helpline contact is not equivalent to a police report, a recorded crime, a charge, a prosecution or a conviction. The published figures do not provide a common denominator for comparing those stages. The Guardian reported that many survivors do not report to police and described shame, fear and the burden of collecting evidence as barriers, but did not quantify how many people face them.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesWhat to do if intimate images are shared or threatened
Police.uk uses “intimate-image abuse” to cover sharing or threatening to share intimate images without permission, as well as creating a fake image or video that appears real. Its guidance is explicit: “You do not need to work out which crime has happened to you.” You can ask for help without deciding which offence applies.
- Report even if you do not have screenshots. Police.uk says: “If you’re not able to capture evidence, or you’re worried it’s not safe to do it, don’t worry. You can still report what’s happened to us, even without it.” Do not put yourself at risk to collect material.
- Share details you can safely provide. If available, useful information may include messages, usernames, platform details and dates. Follow police advice about evidence in your particular case; do not assume you should copy, retain or send intimate images.
- Use the England-and-Wales online reporting route if it suits your situation. The National Police Chiefs’ Council announced an online reporting service on 25 February 2026. It provides practical advice and routes to reporting, removal assistance, evidence guidance and emotional support.
- Seek specialist help separately from reporting to police. Police.uk lists the Revenge Porn Helpline and StopNCII.org as support options. These services will not contact police on your behalf, and a police report is a separate step. Removal assistance is not a guarantee that every copy or image will be removed.
How the law is changing—and why commencement matters
In England and Wales, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 amended section 33 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 so that threatening to disclose private sexual photographs and films became an offence. The government’s later legal factsheet, updated 30 September 2026, describes further provisions in the Crime and Policing Act 2026. It covers an offence relating to copying certain images shared only temporarily, an extended prosecution time limit for summary-only offences, duties for platforms to remove qualifying reports within 48 hours at the latest, and court orders requiring images to be deleted.
The factsheet describes these measures in prospective terms. A provision appearing in legislation does not, by itself, establish that it has commenced or is operational. The position should therefore be checked against current official guidance before relying on a particular new offence or platform duty. The factsheet also states that there is no time limit for the more serious intimate-image offences involving intent to cause alarm, distress or humiliation, or sexual gratification; that distinction should not be confused with the separate time-limit change for summary-only offences.
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What accountability would need to clarify
The figures and survivor accounts raise questions about how forces recognise offences, handle evidence and communicate decisions. The super-complaint asks for a systemic response, but its allegations and the reported figures alone do not establish what happened in each case or why charging rates vary between forces. Any review would need to examine comparable data using the same offence definitions, periods, force coverage and units—such as recorded crimes, charges or convictions—and assess how forces respond to survivors in practice.
Harriet Bland, a lawyer with the Centre for Women’s Justice, said: “Without an urgent overhaul of police guidance and training on image-based abuse – which must be regularly updated – and a clear national strategy rolled out across forces, survivors will continue to be let down.” The question for the bodies considering the complaint is whether they will investigate the alleged systemic failures and what action, if any, follows.
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