The Bill has finally been signed into law.
The sharing of intimate images without a person’s consent Bill has been signed into law.
The Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017 was signed into law by President Michael D Higgins this week. The offence carries a penalty of an unlimited fine and/or up to seven years imprisonment.
“Having considered the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017, President Higgins has today signed the Bill and it has accordingly become law,” read a statement.
Informally named ‘Coco’s Law’, the legislation criminalises image based sexual abuse and other forms of online abuse in Ireland. The law is named after Nicole Fox Fenlon, a 21-year-old women who died by suicide in 2018 after being cyber-bullied.
Nicole’s mother, Jackie Fox, has campaigned tirelessly for harsher punishments against online abuse since her daughter’s passing. She told Her earlier this year that after Nicole’s death, she made it her mission to make cyber-bullying illegal in Ireland.
“I had numerous meetings in the Dáil with various parties, protests, and a march through Dublin to highlight the importance of a badly needed law,” she says.
“I finally found Brendan Howlin who drafted up a law called the Harmful Harassment Communications Related Act, also known as Coco’s law. This law is in the equality of justice committee at the moment which is stage 3.
“Because we didn’t have a government for the last few months and with everything that has happened with Covid-19, everything paused. But I’ve never stopped fighting to get it pushed through.”
The Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill was first proposed by former Labour party leader Brendan Howlin in 2017.
Section 4 of the Bill states: “A person who without lawful authority or reasonable excuse records, distributes or publishes, or threatens to record, distribute or publish, an intimate image of another person without the other person’s consent” and subsequently causes harm or distress the person should be charged with an offence.
The Bill in question proposed that the guilty party be liable to a Class A fine or a prison sentence of between six months and seven years, depending on the case.
Earlier this summer, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said that she was hopeful that new legislation would be enacted by the end of 2020. She told Newstalk: “I know the huge and very damaging impact that something like this can have on someone.
“There is currently legislation in place around harassment and harmful communications, but what we’re doing with this other piece of legislation is strengthening that from the criminal aspect and the criminal side.”
McEntee said she intends to commence Coco’s Law in February 2021.
