Northumbria Sees 16% Rise in Reported Sexual Offences Amid Revenge Porn Concerns
Between May 2024 and May 2025, the Northumbria Police area saw a 16% increase in reported sexual offences, rising from 5,073 to 5,865 cases .
This surge is partly linked to new legislation targeting revenge porn and the unlawful sharing of intimate images. A 48% rise in “other sexual crimes”—an additional 437 cases—is specifically attributed to new crime codes under the Online Offences Act 2023, addressing the sharing and threatening to share sexual images .
Sophie Mortimer, manager of the Revenge Porn Helpline, described the trend as “worrisome” and “disheartening”—while it’s encouraging that more victims are coming forward, it’s troubling that such abuse took so long to be taken seriously. She highlighted that distributing such images has been a criminal offence since 2015, with threats to share them criminalised since 2021, and lamented that the Online Safety Act only recently brought legislative changes into effect .
Nationally, the Revenge Porn Helpline also reported a 20.9% increase in image-abuse reports during 2024 .
