Key facts
- From November 6, 2026, publishing or possessing extreme pornography in England and Wales carries up to five years in prison.
- Police in England and Wales arrest about 1,000 people a month for online child sexual abuse offences, most of them men.
- DCI Gerard Smith of West Mercia said the volume of arrests is going up very significantly.
- Several forces are looking at a Surrey pilot called Solah that sends civilians to visit children viewing illegal material.
- Ofcom said new legal duties on tech companies will come into force after its codes are updated, with a consultation planned for the first half of 2027.
- Ofcom said it has investigated more than 100 platforms and issued fines totaling more than £7m against 11 providers in the first 18 months of the Online Safety Act.
A ban on publishing or possessing extreme pornography took effect in England and Wales on November 6, 2026, making it illegal to distribute or hold material showing strangulation, incest including some step-relations, or adults acting out fantasies of sex with under-16s. The offense carries a prison sentence of up to five years, and Ministry of Justice adverts circulating on social media warned users to delete such material before the deadline.
Police forces are turning to specialist charities and partner agencies to cope with the number of teenagers caught up in online child abuse, officers said. DC Sarah Turner, part of a specialist team in West Mercia, said the law will be difficult to police because "teen is one of the most popular porn terms" and there is a huge appetite for the material. DCI Gerard Smith, who leads the West Mercia team, told the Guardian that focus must be on distributors to prevent sharing at source, and that the volume of arrests is going up very significantly.
Across England and Wales, police arrest about 1,000 people a month, most of them men, for online child sexual abuse offenses. Turner said dark web abuse sites resemble regular porn sites in style and content, with similar search terms, but the videos show real children being sexually abused. DC Pep Saladino said arrested men describe a numbness and desensitization to extreme material, and often say they are glad to have been caught.
The West Mercia officers said they see so many young people, some in their early teens, that they are looking at a pilot scheme that would send civilians to visit children viewing illegal material. Smith cited a successful project in Surrey called Solah and said several forces are looking at it, adding that police do not want to criminalize children where there are no aggravating factors such as coercing others.
DS Peter Wheeler said many young adults started watching pornography as children and escalated, and that attention must go to the big porn platforms, which he described as multimillion-pound companies. Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at Durham University, said she is concerned about misinformation that the law polices what individuals have on their phones, and that it is about platforms removing egregious content. She said social media is also an issue and asked what X will do about horrific material.