Maria Miller MP met with Chief Constable Andy Marsh yesterday in Parliament with other Hampshire MPs to look ahead and discuss future changes. Maria said: “It is crucial that MPs communicate with the heads of our local police departments and that we cooperate with them in order to achieve the best possible outcomes. The meeting with Chief Constable Andy Marsh was valuable in clarifying matters and making us all aware of what is to come with the future of Hampshire Constabulary.”
New national crime figures for Hampshire show fewer crimes being reported by the public but because more reported crimes are being recorded figures show an increase of 8% of recorded crimes.
Maria continued, “At a time when Hampshire Police has made significant savings to help reduce the budget deficit it is reassuring to know that reported crime is down and satisfaction with Police performance is up. This trend is backed up in evidence from the British Crime Survey. Nationwide, Police are having to respond very different types of crime: Car and household thefts have fallen but there has been a significant increase in the reporting of violent and sexual offences. The Police are having to tackle different crimes and having to change their way of working to reflect that.”
In 2014,Maria led a campaign to make it a crime to post online nude and sexually explicit images without consent (revenge pornography), after being approached by a constituent about the impact it was having on women’s lives. She gained the agreement of the Government and a new law came into force in April of this year. Figures released by the Press Association show that Police are now dealing with their largest ever volume of revenge porn cases.
Maria said, “Posting revenge porn is now a criminal offence and the new figures demonstrate that more victims have the confidence to come forward and report this appalling crime. They know the Police will take it seriously and treat it as a crime. Before the new law was introduced, many Police Forces appeared to be unclear as to whether a crime had been committed if a nude or sexually explicit image was posted online without consent. The Police were dealing with a patchwork of offences and it was often difficult for them to always take the necessary action.
“These figures start to demonstrate the scale of the problem. It was wrong to say that the new law wasn’t needed. It is vital that the CPS now takes these crimes seriously and press prosecutions. I want this new law to be a deterrent to those who think posting nude and indecent images of another person is acceptable. It is a criminal offence and the perpetrator of the crime could face prison and a criminal record.”