Over 80 Labour MPs urge Theresa May to offer anonymity to revenge porn victims

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Theresa May is facing growing pressure to extend anonymity to victims of so-called “revenge porn” amid concerns women are being put off seeking justice out of fear of being publicly humiliated.

Some 87 Labour MPs have written the prime minister calling for her to make it a specific sexual offence to share intimate images and videos without a person’s consent, which would offer the victim lifelong anonymity, in line with other sex crimes.

Revenge porn was made a criminal offence in 2015, carrying a sentence of up to two years in prison, and courts are being provided with sentencing guidelines for the first time which demand the harshest penalties for repeat offenders.

However a growing number of cross-party MPs are calling on the government to go further and make it dedicated sexual offence, emboldened by the recent "upskirting" bill, which bans the practice of taking surreptitious photographs under women's dresses.

The letter, organised by Richard Burgon, the shadow justice secretary, and shadow equalities minister Dawn Butler, said: “It cannot be right that victims of image-based sexual abuse, who have already had their privacy violated in a disgusting betrayal of trust, face having their identity made public when seeking to pursue charges.

“It puts pressure on victims not to do so and lets perpetrators off the hook.

"We welcome that the government has recently joined the consensus that upskirting should be made a specific criminal offence.

"We hope that a similar consensus can be built to close this loophole in the law and give victims the protection they deserve."

Labour wants the government to use its new victims strategy, which is due to be published in the summer, to change the law.

One in three cases of revenge pornography has been withdrawn by the complainant since it became law in 2015, according to figures obtained by the BBC.

Victims chose not to support charges in 2,813 of 7,806 incidents, with some people citing a lack of anonymity as a key factor in their decision not to seek justice.

It comes after the prime minister is understood to have stepped in when a backbench bill to ban “upskirting” was blocked by Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope, who harbours long-standing objections to the private member's bill system.

Senior women MPs considered amending the bill to cover revenge pornography but it was deemed to be outside the scope of the legislation.

Maria Miller, chair of the women and equalities committee, said there was cross-party support for offering anonymity for victims but she said the government needed to take a broader look at all online image-based abuse.

She told The Independent: "Rather than continuing to have a piecemeal approach to the way we deal with abusive images being distributed without people's consent, we need to have a more strategic piece of legislation which criminalises all these images and does so in a way that it can deal with new offences and new abuses as they emerge, such as "deepfakes".

"I think simply trying to do successive pieces of legislation isn't working and this needs to be looked at more strategically.

"It needs to be seen as a sex offence to grant people anonymity, which is exactly the way the upskirting bill has been dealt with."

The new revenge pornography guidelines will be used in courts in England and Wales from October 1.

Justice minister Rory Stewart said: "These crimes can have a devastating and deeply traumatising effect on victims.

"These new guidelines will ensure that our courts recognise the serious harm caused to victims, and that perpetrators are properly punished."

The issue hit the headlines when Zara McDermott, a former government adviser, and Laura Anderson, an air stewardess, reportedly had intimate images and videos shared online while appearing in the popular reality TV show.