Almost 100 cases prosecuted under Coco’s Law, review reveals
Patrick Nicole File Memory Fox In Picture: 'coco' Law Was Coco's Her 2018 Named In Died Browne
Almost 100 cases have been prosecuted since Coco’s Law came into effect.
This is according to an operational review published by Justice Minister Helen McEntee on the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020, also known as Coco’s Law.
Enacted in 2021, the legislation criminalises the sharing of, or threatening to share, intimate images without a person’s consent, with or without intent to cause harm to the victim.
The act also seeks to target other areas of harmful communications by creating a new offence of distributing, publishing, or sending a threatening or grossly offensive communication with intent to cause harm and to extend the current offence of harassment to deal with communications about a person, as well as communications to a person.
Coco's Law was named after 21-year-old Nicole 'Coco' Fox, who died by suicide in 2018 after suffering years of physical and online abuse that started just after she turned 18.
The review by the Department of Justice found positive early indicators in terms of prosecutions taken, the number of reports of intimate image abuse made to a hotline for illegal content, and general awareness of the legislation.
Ms McEntee said: “Sharing an intimate image of someone without their consent is an abhorrent form of sexual abuse and a serious crime.
“While this review concludes that it’s too soon to make sweeping generalisations, particularly as it can take some time for cases to proceed through the system, it’s heartening to see the legislation’s positive impact three years after commencement.”
The review found the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions had taken a total of 99 cases in respect of sections 2, 3 or 4 of the act between its commencement and the end of 2023, she said.
The review noted independent research from August 2021 which found 69% thought it was against the law to share intimate images without consent, and 51% thought it was against the law to threaten to share intimate images.
A follow-up piece of research conducted in November 2023 found those figures had jumped to 97% and 96%, after the public awareness campaign.
“Making people aware of this legislation was — and continues to be — a major focus for us, and our awareness campaigns on intimate image abuse have been successful," Ms McEntee said.
“I know that An Garda Síochána anticipates that the numbers of prosecutions will continue to rise as further reports are received and criminal investigations then progress.”
As part of the awareness campaign, the Department of Justice partnered with Hotline.ie to provide a widely accessible reporting mechanism for victims of intimate image abuse. Once illegal content is reported to Hotline, its experts assess the report and decide on the next steps.
Any online service provider served by Hotline.ie with an intimate image abuse notice is responsible for removing the content at source.
The review found that, between September 2021 and December 2023, almost 1,500 reports were made to Hotline.ie which, after assessment, were found to be intimate image abuse.
Some 1,006 of these were images or videos shared without the person’s consent via publicly accessible web locations, and Hotline.ie was able to get 92% removed.
Hotline.ie also received more than 400 reports relating to threats to share intimate images, including 366 cases of sexual extortion and 27 threats to share intimate images for harassment purposes.
Ms McEntee said: “We wanted to make reporting intimate image abuse as easy as possible for as many victims as possible, and that has been successful. The removal rate by Hotline.ie is very encouraging, particularly as so much of this content is found to be hosted outside Ireland.
“It is, of course, open to anyone who wishes to make a report directly to the gardaí to do so, and I would encourage anyone who has been a victim of intimate image abuse to take that step.”