Five years on from the introduction of the Domestic Abuse Act, intimate image abuse remains a growing problem that continues to provoke significant alarm.

Refuge, the nation’s foremost provider of specialist support for those experiencing domestic violence, has voiced deep concern over prosecution rates for intimate image offences, which stay dangerously low and are actually falling – even as the volume of recorded cases rises steadily.

Between July 2021 and July 2022, forces recorded 4,058 such incidents, a number that rose to 5,151 during July 2024 to July 2025.

Across the period from July 2021 through February 2026, forces covering England and Wales logged 21,905 offences in total, yet just 4.8 percent – equivalent to 1,047 files – resulted in charges or court appearances.

Emma Pickering, who heads Refuge’s work on abuse enabled by technology and economic control, said the organisation’s position is that five years after the Domestic Abuse Act became law, victims of intimate image abuse are still being badly let down on too many occasions.

The police statistics are deeply worrying, showing a yawning gap between the vast number of reports received and the shockingly small number of prosecutions brought. Unless police handling of these offences improves substantially, victims will continue to be denied justice while perpetrators escape punishment.

Compulsory training for all officers in this area is vital if women and girls are to feel confident that when they come forward to report intimate image abuse, they will encounter an approach that properly recognises the seriousness of what has occurred.

Technology firms must also be held responsible for the harm allowed to persist on their services, which directly undermines women’s safety.

Only with such changes will women and girls be able to use technology with genuine confidence and security, as they are entitled to do.

Intimate image abuse, frequently described as revenge porn, involves making, sharing or threatening to share explicit photographs or video content without permission, including material generated through artificial intelligence.

Referrals to Refuge’s technology-enabled and economic abuse programme jumped by more than 62 percent during 2025 compared with the previous twelve months.