Peers back ban on step-relative porn and non-consensual screenshots in Crime and Policing Bill
Mar 3rd 2026
The House of Lords has backed amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill to ban pornography depicting sex between step-relatives, criminalise non-consensual screenshots of intimate images, align images of adults pretending to be children with child imagery laws, and require courts to order deletion of shared intimate images.
- House of Lords voted 144 to 143 to extend a ban on pornographic images of sex between relatives to include step-relatives.
- Peers also voted 142 to 140 to treat intimate images of adults pretending to be children the same as images of real children.
- The Bill would make it a criminal offence to take a screenshot or copy an intimate image that was shared only temporarily without consent.
- Courts will have a duty to order deletion and deprivation of intimate images shared or threatened to be shared without consent, a measure backed 202 to 155.
- Peers supported a statutory hashing rule to help platforms block and remove non-consensual intimate images, passing 192 to 155.
- Proponents, including Baroness Bertin, argued the measures tackle material that normalises child sexualisation and cited figures linking many child abuse cases to step-parents.
- Opponents, including justice minister Baroness Levitt, warned the step-relative ban could criminalise lawful adult relationships and complicate policing and prosecutions.
- The Bill must return to both Houses for agreement before it can become law.