Creating an offence of public sexual harassment
Download the full outcome
Detail of outcome
The consultation closed on 1 September, and we received responses from 25 of the organisations to which the consultation was sent, as well as 285 other responses. This document summarises the responses, in the order of the questions posed in the consultation.
Original consultation
Consultation description
Ministers undertook that by Parliament’s 2022 summer recess the government would launch a consultation on whether a specific offence for public sexual harassment (sexual harassment in public spaces) should be created.
This page contains the consultation document and associated impact assessment.
The consultation asks:
- whether or not a specific criminal offence of public sexual harassment should be created
- if such an offence were to be created, what it should look like
- whether the government should take additional non-legislative actions to tackle public sexual harassment (either instead of or in addition to a new criminal offence)
The consultation is a targeted rather than a public one, and it has been sent to recipients in:
- charities and organisations focused on crimes which disproportionately affect women and girls (including organisations focused on male victims of those crimes)
- victim-focused charities
- children’s and schools sectors
- organisations related to the world of work
- policing
- the legal sector
- local government
- night-time economy organisations
- transport organisations
- specialist academia
British Sign Language users
Documents
Last updated 8 December 2022 + show all updates
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Government response published.
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Added easy read version of consultation.
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Accessible HTML version (Welsh) and British Sign Language version of consultation document added.
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First published.