Fundamental review of masturbatory indecent exposure treatment

Today I can confirm acceptance of all three of the recommendations made to the Government, which the Home Office will now work to deliver at pace. These recommendations are that the Home Office, in collaboration with partners, should conduct a fundamental review of the way masturbatory indecent exposure is treated within the criminal justice system; commission research to establish if there is an evidence-based link between masturbatory indecent exposure and subsequent offending; and launch a campaign to raise awareness that indecent exposure and sending unsolicited photographs of genitals amounts to criminality and boost victims' confidence to report such crimes.

The Government has completed a review of the police responses to non-contact sexual offences, including masturbatory indecent exposure. An update on this work will be provided in due course.

I can confirm that this review is being taken forward in response to recommendation 3 of the Angiolini Inquiry Part 1 Report and we agreed it was important for our work to consider a range of non-contact sexual offending.

As the Committee will be aware, the majority of non-contact sexual offences which are reported to the police do not progress beyond the early stages of the justice system because no suspect is identified or there are evidential difficulties. We will therefore focus first on how the police seek to identify, disrupt, investigate, and prevent these offences. The objective of our research is to explore different approaches and highlight challenges and opportunities to improve police processes and practices, including understanding where innovative practice is taking place.

We are interviewing officers involved in all parts of the response to non-contact sexual offences, including frontline officers, senior officers, intelligence analysts and contact centre staff from a diverse range of police forces – in urban and rural areas, and covering large and small populations.

The findings from this work will be available next year, and we will use them to examine where further is work is needed, including with other Government departments and criminal justice agencies.

1.15 Summary of progress: The Home Office has initiated a review into how forces identify, disrupt and manage non-contact sexual offences, engaging with 13 forces and utilising the e-learning developed in response to Recommendation 2. In September 2025, the findings from this work were shared in draft with the Inquiry and had not yet been published. This report is being reviewed by ministers, who will agree next steps.