Super complaint lodged against police over image-based abuse failures

A super complaint has been lodged against police forces in England and Wales over the handling of image-based abuse, including non-consensual intimate images and AI-generated deepfakes. Lawyers and campaigners acting for more than 100 people say victims face delays, dismissive responses and, in some cases, are left to gather evidence themselves.

Campaign groups filed the complaint against all police forces over what they say is a failure to investigate and prosecute image abuse online. A solicitor working for the Centre for Women's Justice and Not Your Porn on the legal action said the super complaint is a complaint to police bodies themselves. If accepted as eligible, they will have a period to investigate, with campaigners involved.

Figures set out the scale. Calls to the revenge porn helpline rose from 521 in 2015 to nearly 25,000 in 2025. Across 39 police forces in England and Wales, the average charge rate for image-based abuse offences last year was 4.5%. In some forces, it dropped below 1%. The data was not all published online; more than 40 freedom of information requests were made to obtain it.

Victim surveys cited in the complaint found that 80% of victims reported failures to gather critical evidence, such as interviewing suspects or seizing their devices. None said they were properly signposted to specialist support services. Almost 50% said they would never report image-based abuse to police again. The vast majority of reports to the revenge porn helpline are from women and girls; the figure given was 98%.

Victims described the personal cost. BBC presenter Jess Davies had photos she had sent to one person shared around her town. She said police told her to have low expectations and took three months to take her statement. South Wales Police said it investigated her case and could not identify a suspect but was continuing to address her concerns.

Another woman, Jodie, found photos taken from her social media and posted online in summer 2020. The images solicited sexual activities and said she was a sex worker. Police told her that if she did not know who was behind it there was nothing they could do, and that it was part and parcel of being online. Months later she learned the images had been manipulated with AI into sexually explicit deepfakes. She went back to police with a file of evidence, was initially told there was no crime, but eventually a man was prosecuted. She said the struggle to be believed left her suicidal.

Juliet had intimate images posted into an online forum after her friend's social media account was hacked. When she first reported it, she was given a leaflet on internet safety and felt as if what happened was blamed on her own naivety. Another force later took up her case after it was initially dropped. She was told an arrest had been made and the perpetrator bailed, but police refused to tell her his identity. She said suspects can live anonymously while victims are identifiable.

Claire Powell, the solicitor working on the legal action, said survivors described trauma upon trauma. One survivor said her nightmares were not about the abuse but about the interview room where she spoke to police, six years after her investigation. Powell said image-based abuse affects every part of life, including work, personal life, communities and schools, and is not just something that happens online. She said some offences must be charged within a six-month window, and that timing out is unacceptable. She likened image-based abuse to a house fire, where police must act quickly. She called for a proper investigation strategy, quick action, more accountability and a national strategy.

The police body handling the super complaint said image-based abuse was a devastating crime and said it was important that offences are taken seriously. Labour MP Jess Asato, who is suing Elon Musk's company xAI over deepfakes of her created with the AI assistant Grok, said the government had made progress, including requiring non-consensual intimate images to be taken down within 48 hours and allowing perpetrators to have images deleted from their phones or tablets. But she said legislation alone is not enough. She criticised tech platforms for often saying reported content does not breach their terms, and said platforms are not safe by design. She called on them to uphold Ofcom guidance on violence against women and girls. She also said victims should be able to use the revenge porn helpline, and that coming forward can help action against perpetrators who may commit other crimes.