criminal-law united-kingdom england-and-wales
Malicious communications UK
<p>If someone reported someone else for sending ‘abusive messages’ to them under the Mal comms act.</p>
<p>Would unsolicited pictures of certain body parts be classed as abusive?</p>
<p>The act is ‘send communication/ article of indecent/ offensive nature’.</p>

<p>It depends on the motives of the sender, among other things.</p>
<p>Section 1(1) of the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/27/contents" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Malicious Communications Act 1988</a> states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(1) Any person who sends to another person—</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>(b) any article or electronic communication which is, in whole or part, of an indecent or grossly offensive nature,</p>
<p>is guilty of an offence if his purpose, or one of his purposes, in sending it is that it should, so far as falling within paragraph (a) or (b) above, cause distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person to whom he intends that it or its contents or nature should be communicated.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If there is no intent to cause distress or anxiety, the offence is not made out and no crime has been committed. Note that the image(s) only need to be &quot;indecent&quot; or &quot;grossly offensive&quot;, they do not need to be &quot;abusive&quot; in any way.</p>
<p>What is &quot;indecent&quot; or &quot;grossly offensive&quot; will be a matter for the jury to decide using common sense. Obviously, if the sender is distributing pornographic images, that will likely to be &quot;indecent&quot;. Likewise with, for example, images that make fun of the Holocaust would probably be deemed &quot;grossly offensive&quot;.</p>
<p>In contrast, an ordinary image of a hand or something would likely not meet the definition of &quot;indecent&quot; or &quot;grossly offensive&quot;.</p>
