The Westminster honey trap refers to a cybercrime attack perpetrated on a dating app in April this year. The victim was a former MP, William Wragg. It engages the Online Safety Act and sheds light on measures to tackle the sharing of intimate images.

The essence of the case is that an anonymous account on a dating app persuaded Mr Wragg to exchange intimate photos and blackmailed him into revealing contact details of Parliamentary colleagues. Following a police investigation, a man was arrested and charged with offences under the Online Safety Act, and recently, Mr Wragg has been speaking to UK media about the incident. 

The exact offences have not been made public, however, we can explore how the Act could apply. It is most likely that the  charges will relate to  the cyber-flashing and so-called revenge porn offences, which address the sharing of intimate images on social media without consent.  

Mr Wragg, who was the former Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee , was duped into forwarding intimate photographs of himself to an unknown man whom he had encountered on the dating app, Grindr, as reported by the BBC.  He says that he was then put under pressure to hand over contact information of others, which he apparently did,  in fear of what the unknown person might do with those images.  

The messages were sent by unknown accounts, going by the names of  Charlie or Abi  who subsequently contacted the other individuals. It is understood from media reports that there were 12 other victims, all allegedly men, who  were targeted by unsolicited messages on the private messaging platform, WhatsApp. They indicated a high level of knowledge about life in Westminster.

  At the time when the story broke in April 2024,  the Guardian reported speculation as to whether this  represented a national security threat by a hostile State. It is now thought more likely that the former MP was a victim of what’s known as a spear phishing attack.

Spear phishing is a form of cybercrime that targets individuals by deception to extract compromising information or money. Typically, the attacks are highly personalised. Criminals trawl through social media to find personal information on their victim, so they can  appear to be a legitimate sender. From what we understand, the attacker in this case had  detailed information on his victims and their  life in Westminster.

Reports  in the Guardian suggest that the man arrested with regard to Mr Wragg’s case was charged 'on suspicion of harassment and offences under the Online Safety Act'.   

There are two offences in the Online Safety Act 2023 that could be engaged. The first is  S.187, in  which  the sharing of photographs of anyone’s genitals is an offence, if the intention is to 'cause distress, alarm or humiliation' or if the person sharing is wilfully reckless of that possibility.  S.187 is often referred to as the cyber-flashing clause. 

The second offence  is S.188, the so-called revenge porn clause. Under S.188, it is an offence to  share any image of someone ‘in an intimate state’ who does not consent to it being shared. It is also an offence to share an intimate image of someone with the 'intention of causing that person distress, alarm, or humiliation,   or threatening to share such an image knowing that the person will fear it  being disseminated'.  The definition of  ‘in an intimate state’ under S.188 includes  sexual acts and  ‘all or part of the person’s exposed genitals, buttocks or breasts’.  There are exemptions which allow , for example, sharing photographs of a child for to consult a doctor.

Both of these offences insert new clauses into the 2003 Sexual Offences Act  Section 66, and hence their name and numbering changes. They become Sections 66A, B, C and D of the 2003 Sexual Offences Act.  To complicate matters further, they are also embedded in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, Schedule 15.  These do seem the most likely offences in the Online Safety Act that could have been used to charge someone in the case of Mr Wragg.

Courts are beginning to hear cases in relation to these new offences. A conviction for  cyber-flashing was handed out by  Southend Crown Court on 19th March 2024. The defendant pleaded guilty to  two counts of ‘sending a photograph or film of genitals to cause alarm, distress, or humiliation’.  

These offences target offenders rather than the offending content which is the primary aim of the Act. However, it does appear that they are intended to be included as primary priority content under Schedule 7 of the Online Safety Act, although the reference is convoluted. As such, if any images that meet the criteria for illegality under S.66 A or B  find their way on public social media platforms, they would have to be removed. However, it is not always straightforward to remove images that have found their way online, and this is the issue that policy-makers are struggling with. 

As ever, there is no silver bullet. The Online Safety Act is not designed to address the real life issues where technology collides with human emotions and arguably human frailty.

The case illustrates how someone who acted very naively on an online dating site, could end up  being racked with guilt and remorse for a very long time, even though they are  not accused  of a crime themselves. It is not what what this Act intended.  Isn’t there something here about societal norms and values that we should be thinking about?

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