A new offence of detaining a child abroad without consent, and three pornography offences carrying up to five years’ imprisonment for publication, took effect in England and Wales on Friday, the Ministry of Justice said.
Section 137 comes into force under the Crime and Policing Act 2026 (Commencement No. 4) Regulations 2026, and the Ministry’s circular gives an implementation date of 6 November.
Section 137 inserts a new subsection (1A) into section 1 of the Child Abduction Act 1984. A person connected with a child under 16 commits an offence if the child is taken or sent out of the UK with appropriate consent and the person later detains the child outside the UK without it.
The circular says “appropriate consent” has the same meaning as in the existing offence at section 1(3). In most cases that means the consent of all persons with parental responsibility or, where required, the permission of the court.
The amendments apply only where the child is taken or sent out of the UK on or after the date section 137 comes into force (section 137(5)).
The change addresses a gap that followed the High Court’s decision in R (Nicolaou) v Redbridge Magistrates’ Court [2012] EWHC 1647 (Admin), decided on 20 June 2012. The court held that “takes or sends” in section 1 refers to the act of removal and does not extend to later retention abroad.
A parent who took a child abroad lawfully therefore committed no offence under section 1 by keeping the child there beyond the agreed or authorised period.
The Law Commission recommended closing the gap in its 2014 report, Simplification of the Criminal Law: Kidnapping and Related Offences. The Government accepted the need to act.
Two exceptions apply. A person named in a child arrangements order as someone with whom the child is to live does not commit the offence if the child is detained abroad for less than one month. A special guardian is exempt for less than three months.
Neither exception applies where the detention breaches an order made under Part II of the Children Act 1989 (section 137(2)(c)). The defence of unreasonable refusal of consent is also disapplied where the person is acting in breach of a UK court order (section 137(2)(d)).
The Government said it recognises the complexities in domestic abuse cases and that the offence is not intended to cut across civil measures.
The pornography offences are in sections 104, 106 and 107, which insert sections 67A to 67J into the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. They cover possessing or publishing an explicit and realistic pornographic image that a reasonable person would think shows real people in one of three categories:
- one person strangling or suffocating another (section 67A);
- penetrative sex between people who are, or pretend to be, related in specified ways, including parent, grandparent, sibling, uncle, aunt, nephew and niece (section 67E);
- sexual activity involving at least one person who is, or is pretending to be, under 16 (section 67H).
A person is not taken to be pretending to be under 16 where it is fanciful that they are actually under 16 in the way pretended (section 67H(3)).
The maximum penalty for possession is two years’ imprisonment for the first two categories and three years for the under 16 category. Publication carries a maximum of five years for each.
Defences are in sections 67B, 67F and 67I. They include not having seen the image before and having no cause to suspect it was covered, direct participation in the act shown, and legitimate reason. For possession, a person sent an image unasked who did not keep it for an unreasonable time also has a defence.
The circular points to Baroness Bertin’s Independent Pornography Review, published in February 2025, as part of the background. The offences are priority offences under the Online Safety Act 2023, so regulated services must carry out risk assessments and put proportionate systems in place to prevent UK users encountering the content. Ofcom monitors and enforces compliance.