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Sending unsolicited explicit images to another device without the person’s consent should be made a specific sexual offence as part of a major shake-up of rules governing online abusive behaviour, according to the body responsible for reviewing legislation.The Law Commission has recommended that the Sexual Offences Act be amended to include cyberflashing – when someone sends an unsolicited sexual photo, or “d*** pic”, through file-sharing functions such as Apple’s AirDrop.There is currently no specific offence of cyberflashing, although the behaviour can be considered within the offences of harassment or public nuisance.“Pile-on” harassment over the internet, when more than one person sends harassing communications to a victim, should also be criminalised as part of the changes to existing laws, which the body said were “ineffective” at preventing “genuinely harmful behaviour”.Its recommendations include adapting the laws relating to encouraging or glorifying self-harm, and raising the threshold for “false communications” offences, to target those who deliberately spread theories about medical treatments which are known not to be true.A new law should also be considered which would criminalise the deliberate sending of flashing images to people with epilepsy with the intention of triggering seizures, the Law Commission said. Professor Penney Lewis, the organisation’s criminal law commissioner, said: “Online abuse can cause untold harm to those targeted and change is needed to ensure we are protecting victims from abuse such as cyberflashing and pile-on harassment.“At the same time, our reforms would better protect freedom of expression by narrowing the reach of the criminal law so it only criminalises the most harmful behaviour.”Caroline Dinenage, the digital and culture minister, said: ”We are putting new legal responsibilities on social media companies to protect the British public. But we have to be confident we can hold the individuals using these sites to threaten, abuse and spread hate accountable too.“I thank the Law Commission for its detailed recommendations which we will carefully consider as we update our laws for the digital age, protecting freedom of speech while making sure what is unacceptable offline is unacceptable online.” The first case of cyberflashing to be investigated by police came in 2015 after a commuter received two pictures of an unknown man’s penis on her phone via Airdrop as she commuted to work.Since then, reports of cyberflashing have increased year on year, with data suggesting the numbers have risen since Covid due to the digital nature of life in lockdown.A report by the University of Leicester found a third of women had complained of being cyberflashed, while a UN Women report said: “These incidents are likely to be rising as women and girls spend more time online during the pandemic.”A separate survey carried out by Glitch, an internet safety charity, last summer found 17 per cent of women or non-binary people had been sent unsolicited pornography.In March, the government announced it was seeking help from the public on how to tackle violence against women and girls in response to an outpouring of anger following the Sarah Everard case. The Home Office reopened a public consultation that it said would help shape an update of its strategy on tackling violence against women and girls after the home secretary, Priti Patel, acknowledged behaviour such as cyberflashing and upskirting had become a more pervasive problem in the last decade while the law had not been changed to reflect this. Additional reporting by PA More

Secret Ministry of Defence (MoD) papers appearing at a Kent bus stop is down to an individual’s mistake, an investigation has found.The investigation found no evidence of espionage and concluded that there has been no compromise of the papers, which included documents relating to the likely reaction of the Russians to the passage of the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender through waters off the coast of Crimea and to the UK military presence in Afghanistan.The papers were found by a member of the public and handed to the BBC. The broadcasting company said that 50 pages of classified information had been found in a “soggy heap” behind the bus stop.MPs had been told that the leak was the result of a mistake by one individual who reported the loss to the MoD.Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told MPs: “We are confident that we have recovered all the secret papers.”He added: “The investigation has found no evidence of espionage and has concluded there has been no compromise of the papers by our adversaries.”The individual has since been removed from “sensitive work” and has already had their security clearance suspended pending a full review.Mr Wallace said: “The investigation has independently confirmed the circumstances of the loss, including the management of the papers within the department, the location at which the papers were lost and the manner in which that occurred.“These are consistent with the events self-reported by the individual.”He added: “For security reasons, the department will be making no further comment on the nature of the loss or on the identity of the individual.”Additional reporting by Press Association More

The government is expected to announce an effective amnesty for those who committed crimes during the Troubles in Northern Ireland in a bid to deal with the region’s bloody past.A statute of limitations ending all prosecutions related to the Troubles before 1998 is said to be one of the elements of a plan to be unveiled by Brandon Lewis on Wednesday afternoon.The move has been condemned by victims groups and political opponents, who warn that the “obscene” legislation which the government hopes will be voted on in the autumn would give a green light to future terrorist groups.A government source said the package of measures “will support Northern Ireland to move beyond an adversarial cycle that doesn’t deliver information or reconciliation for victims and survivors nor end the cycle of investigations against our veterans” but rejected claims it would effectively amount to an amnesty.The blanket approach was necessary since lawyers advising the secretary of state have warned that protecting one side from prosecution could be illegal and that clemency should be extended to those on both sides of the fighting, The Sun reported.More than 3,500 people died during the conflict, which stretched from the early 1970s to the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement in 1998, while tens of thousands more were left injured.Julie Hambleton, whose older sister Maxine was among 21 people killed in the 1974 blasts in Birmingham, has written to Boris Johnson on behalf of the Justice 4 The 21 campaign group to decry the planned legislation.“If one of your loved ones was blown up beyond recognition, where you were only able to identify your son or daughter by their fingernails because their face had been burned so severely from the blast and little of their remains were left intact, would you be so quick to agree to such obscene legislation being implemented?” Ms Hambleton asked.“You would do everything in your power to find the murderers and bring them to justice, which is exactly what we campaign for every day.”She added: “How is this considered to be a deterrent for any future terrorist organisations?”What your government is proposing is that no matter what city terrorists decide to wreak death and destruction upon, do not worry because the British government will let you walk away free without any fear of retribution of prosecution.“Earlier this month, Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service (PPS) announced their intention to withdraw proceedings against two former soldiers – Soldier F for the murder of two men during Bloody Sunday in 1972 and Soldier B for the murder of 15-year-old Daniel Hegarty six months later.It followed a review of the cases by the PPS in light of a recent court ruling that caused the collapse of another Troubles murder trial involving two military veterans.The Crown cases against Soldier F and Soldier B hinged on evidence of a similar nature to that ruled inadmissible in April’s trial of Soldier A and Soldier C for the 1972 murder of Official IRA leader Joe McCann in Belfast.A legal challenge to the decision to withdraw proceedings against Soldier F is ongoing.In 2014, the Stormont House Agreement proposed a Historical Investigations Unit to examine unsolved murders during the Troubles and an Independent Commission on Information Retrieval for families to learn more about the fate of their loved ones.None of the proposals were implemented.Additional reporting by PA More

Customers may require Covid-19 certificates or vaccine passports to enter entertainment venues in England from autumn, according to reports.The government is said to be considering making the documentation mandatory in venues such as pubs, bars and restaurants, where it would be used by customers to prove they have had either both doses of a coronavirus vaccine or a negative test the day before in a bid to tackle the fourth wave of the coronavirus.It is hoped the move will increase vaccine uptake among the younger demographics, The Times newspaper has reported.Currently, 86.8 per cent of people in England have had a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine and 65.5 per cent have had both, according to official figures from Public Health England.However, vaccine uptake has slowed, recent figures show, with first doses halving in two weeks. The average number of doses given out per day is at the lowest since April.The prime minister, Boris Johnson, this week announced that the majority of social distancing measures will be lifted on 19 July, including enforced mask-wearing, despite a rise in cases related to the Delta variant.Capacity restrictions on pubs, restaurants and other public events are also expected to be lifted.The number of coronavirus infections linked to the dominant Delta variant have increased by 54,268 in the past week, a rise of 34 per cent, Public Health England has said. The variant now counts for 99 per cent of all cases that have been genetically sequenced.In total 216,249 confirmed and probable cases of the Covid-19 Delta variant have been identified in the UK, up from 161,981 cases in the previous week.Hospital admissions for 9 July are at 509, totalling 2,672 in the last week – a jump of 55.9 per cent.Britons are growing wary of the relaxation of rules: a poll by Ipsos MORI for The Economist on Thursday shows that nearly 70 per cent want to see face masks made compulsory in shops and on public transport for a certain period after 19 July, when the government plans to lift all restrictions in England and 64 per cent would like them to remain in place until coronavirus is controlled worldwide. More

The Home Office spent more than £370,000 to settle a top civil servant’s tribunal claim after he quit amid allegations of Priti Patel’s bullying, departmental accounts confirm.Former permanent secretary Sir Philip Rutnam accepted the six-figure sum earlier this year after launching legal action against the Home Secretary.He dramatically resigned in February last year, accusing Ms Patel of a “vicious and orchestrated” briefing campaign against him, claiming constructive dismissal and accusing her of bullying subordinates. An employment tribunal was due to hear his case in September.The Home Office’s annual report and accounts for 2020-21 confirm he received a payout of £340,000 plus legal costs – taking the spend to at least £370,000 plus VAT of an anticipated £6,000.Although the figures were previously reported, neither Sir Philip’s representatives nor the department would publicly disclose the amount at the time.The document, published on Thursday, said: “Sir Philip Rutnam resigned from his post as Permanent Secretary of the Home Office on 29 February 2020 and subsequently began legal proceedings against the department.“On 4 March 2021, the Home Office and Sir Philip signed an agreement to settle these proceedings. As part of this settlement, the Home Office made a special payment of £340,000. A contribution to his legal costs was also made of £30,000 plus VAT.”By Press Association More

An MP has accused the Metropolitan Police of racial profiling after officers stopped her and her family as they headed to a restaurant in central London last month.Kim Johnson, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, said that she, her son and his friend – both black men in their 30s – and their two wives were all surrounded as they enjoyed an evening out in Covent Garden.Officers told the group that one of the men matched a description of someone they were looking for but “turned on their heels” after Ms Johnson informed them she was an MP.She said: “We were getting out of a taxi to go to a restaurant… which was just a few feet away. All of a sudden there were all these police officers around us.“They wanted to know what we were doing. My son’s friend is a black man and he was wearing a bright yellow jacket. They said they had received reports of a man wearing a yellow jacket.“I said to them, ‘Why are you stopping us? We have just got out of a taxi. I am an MP and I want to know why you’re stopping us?’ They turned on their heels then.”The incident happened on 18 June, the day England played Scotland in the Euro 2020 football tournament and Ms Johnson raised the question of why “rowdy fans” were left unbothered by officers, while her family was targeted.Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, Ms Johnson – who became the first black MP to represent Liverpool when she was elected in 2019 – added: “You are still three times more likely to be stopped and searched as a black male.”She said that “racial profiling and stop and search” remained prevalent issues that needed to be addressed.The Metropolitan Police force said it was “unable to comment on this specific incident” but added that if a person matched the description of someone involved in a suspected crime, “we would expect officers to pursue all lines of enquiry, including speaking to individuals who match the description”. It added: “The Met remains committed to ensuring that every encounter is conducted professionally with respect and courtesy.” More

Tennis star Andy Murray has joined condemnation of the government for the “pathetic” 1% pay rise given to NHS workers, moments after winning an exhausting five-set second-round win at Wimbledon.Answering questions after the game, he said it was “fantastic” many frontline health workers and other key figures of the pandemic had been recognised by being invited to the championships.“I think the whole country kind of realised how important they all are, and maybe hadn’t got the recognition that they probably deserve up until now,” Murray said.“So, yeah, it’s fantastic that they have been able to come along and watch some of the tennis. Hopefully they can enjoy it and, yeah, hopefully the politicians can realise that they deserve more than what they are getting paid just now.“I think, what is it, they got something like a 1% pay rise? It was pathetic. So, yeah, they obviously deserve a lot more than that. They have done an amazing job getting us through the pandemic.”Prime Minister Boris Johnson in March insisted the 1% payrise allocated to NHS staff was as much as the Government could afford amid the financially tight times of the pandemic, although Labour said it went against a Government promise made last year for a 2.1% pay rise.With Wimbledon resuming this summer after being cancelled last year, tournament officials have been applauded for inviting various people who have been at the forefront of the fight against the pandemic.Inside centre court on Monday, Oxford University’s Dame Sarah Gilbert – co-creator of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine – was given a standing ovation by the crowd when her attendance was announced. Oxford colleague Sir Andrew Pollard, another co-creator of the vaccine, was also present on Monday.An ovation was also given for Hannah Ingram, daughter of Captain Sir Tom Moore, who last year raised £33 million of pounds for the NHS.The centre court announcer said NHS critical care staff were also in attendance, along with key workers at Transport for London and other “inspirational workers” who have contributed to Britain’s pandemic battle, while more figures would be recognised through the Wimbledon fortnight.Murray, the injury-plagued dual champion of the tournament, reached the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time in four years through his five-set win over Germany’s Oscar Otte.Asked about the nation’s other current obsession – Euro 2020 – the 34-year-old Surrey-dwelling Murray put his Scottish roots aside to wishEngland well.“It’s a great opportunity for England to win a major competition for the first time in a while,” he said. “Hopefully they can do it.” More

Both Boris Johnson and Prince George watched England’s victory over Germany in suits, while Rishi Sunak shared a photo of himself putting on a three lions shirt.The prime minister tweeted a picture of himself cheering on the team with his wife Carrie Symonds as they watched on TV.Mr Johnson later posted another image that showed him celebrating as Harry Kane scored to put England 2-0 up in the Euro 2020 quarter-final qualifier.“We’re all behind you – bring it home!” he tweeted, apparently from a different location than his earlier post.Joining the prime minister in formal attire for the game was seven-year-old Prince George, who in the stands at Wembley alongside his parents, Prince William and Kate Middleton, wearing a navy blue suit and striped tie.However, the chancellor shared a photo of himself appearing to put on an England shirt. The photo, which showed Mr Sunak’s face covered by the shirt as he pulled it over his head, was met with some confusion on social media.“Are you stuck?” one userasked, while another replied: “You’re wearing a shirt and tie under a football top?”Other politicians also tweeted about the football, with Priti Patel, the home secretary, sharing a GIF of an England flag with a roaring lion after full-time.Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, posted a photo of himself holding an England shirt next to his German counterpart, who was holding his own national team’s shirt. More