Vulnerable people who are encouraged or assisted to harm
themselves will have greater protection under a new offence being
introduced as part of the Crime and Policing Bill.
To mark Mental Health Awareness Week, the government is pushing
ahead with vital new measures to further protect those at risk –
with recent NHS data showing self-harm hospital admissions among
young people have soared by a third.
The government is going further to strengthen safeguards -
broadening the law to capture more malicious behaviour, bringing
parity between the online and offline world and protect people
who are at risk of suicide or self-harm.
The new laws will make it a criminal offence to directly assist
someone to self-harm - such as giving someone a blade or sending
them pills – whether it is done in person or online. This will
build on existing laws that already prevent people encouraging or
assisting suicide or self-harm through content online.
Minister for Victims and Violence Against Women and Girls
(VAWG), , said
“The prevalence of serious self-harm, especially in young people,
is hugely concerning. It is an awful truth that some people
encourage or assist such behaviour, and one I wanted to draw
attention to during Mental Health Awareness Week.
“Whether encouragement is by communication, or more directly by
assistance, the outcome is the same. We are determined that
anybody intending to see others harm themselves is stopped and
dealt with in the strongest way.”
Under this broader offence, someone can also be prosecuted if
their intention is to cause serious self-harm even when this does
not result in injuries to the vulnerable person. Those found
guilty face up to 5 years in prison.
Self-harm can occur at any age. A recent study on people aged 13
to 15 reported that prevalence was greater among girls (22.7%)
than boys (8.5%).
There is also increasing evidence of links between internet usage
and self-harm, with one study finding that, among self-harm
hospital presentations, the prevalence of suicide and self-harm
related internet use was 26% among children and
adolescents.
Anybody struggling with self-harm or suicidal thoughts is urged
to get in touch with their GP or get advice and emotional support
from organisations such as the Samaritans, Mind, or
SANEline.
ENDS
Notes to editors
- To avoid criminalising vulnerable people who share their
experiences of self-harm publicly, if a person does not intend to
encourage or assist serious self-harm then they will not be
prosecuted as they did not mean to cause any harm to others. This
enables the issue to continue to be discussed openly, for
awareness and therapeutic purposes, without fear of
repercussion.
- Mental Health Awareness Week runs from 12 to 18 May
2025
- The Online Safety Act 2023 gave partial effect to the Law
Commission recommendation to create an offence, modelled on the
offence of encouraging and assisting suicide, to tackle the
encouragement of self-harm. It did so by introducing a new
offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm by means of
verbal or electronic communications, publications or
correspondence
- The Crime and Policing Bill will repeal the existing offence
and replace it with a broader offence of encouraging or assisting
serious self-harm to cover all means by which serious self-harm
broader may be encouraged or assisted, including by any means of
communication and in any other way
- The offence contains two key elements to ensure that the
offence does not disproportionately impact vulnerable people who
harm themselves and constrains the offence to only the most
culpable offending. These are (1) that the defendant's act must
be intended to encourage or assisting the serious self-harm of
another person; and (2) that the defendant's act is capable of
encouraging or assisting the serious self-harm of another person.
The offence therefore targets those who intend by their act to
cause another person to seriously self-harm Sharing experiences
of self-harm, or simply discussing the issue, without such
intention will not be a criminal offence
