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e-petition relating to crimes motivated by misogyny and hate crime law

E-petition 746640

E-petition 746640 calls for the government to act in relation to crimes motivated by misogyny. The e-petition says:

The Government should amend the Sentencing Act 2020 to record crimes motivated by misogyny as hate crimes and introduce tougher laws for online abuse, and fund the training of police and prosecutors, and support for survivors in education.

We want the Government to tackle anti-feminist hate groups that target and radicalise young people online. Many young women, especially students, face harassment, assault, and online abuse. Misogyny can fuel this violence, yet we believe current laws fail to address it directly. Recognising misogyny as a hate crime could protect victims, deter offenders, and send a clear message that gender-based hostility is unacceptable. It could also validate survivors’ experiences and help create safer environments in education and online, where young people are most vulnerable.

The e-petition ran for six months and closed on 2 June 2026 with 114,927 signatures.

The government response

The government published a response to the e-petition on 11 March 2026. The response said the government was taking the following steps:

• legislating (through the Crime and Policing Bill, now the Crime and Policing Act 2026) to add ‘sex’ to the list of personal characteristics covered by aggravated hate crime offences in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998
• considering the findings of an Independent Review of Public Order and Hate Crime, commissioned by the Home Secretary following the Heaton Park Synagogue attack in Manchester in October 2025
• tackling the “root causes” of violence against women and girls through the “strategic direction and concrete actions” set out in Freedom from Violence and Abuse: a cross-government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls, published by the Home Office in December 2025

Further details on each of the above are set out below.

Hate crime legislation

Existing hate crime legislation applies to five personal characteristics: race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and transgender identity. However, there is no single offence of ‘hate crime’. Instead, the existing law has developed in a piecemeal fashion and applies to these characteristics in different ways.

Aggravated offences under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998

In England and Wales, sections 28 to 32 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 set out racially or religiously aggravated forms of certain ‘basic’ criminal offences. The offences covered are:

• various types of assault (section 29)
• criminal damage (section 30)
• public order offences involving harassment, alarm or distress (section 31)
• harassment and stalking (section 32)

The aggravated forms of these offences carry higher maximum sentences than their basic equivalents: for example, basic criminal damage carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, while racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.

Section 145 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 (not yet in force) will extend the aggravated offences in the 1998 act to cover cases motivated by hostility based on disability, sexual orientation, transgender identity, and sex. For full background, see section 5.1 of the Library briefing Crime and Policing Bill 2024-26: Lords amendments.

Aggravated sentencing under the Sentencing Code

Under section 66 of the Sentencing Code as currently in force, where an offence has been motivated by hostility on the grounds of race or religion but is not an offence covered by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, or has been motivated by hostility on the grounds of sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity, the court must treat this as an aggravating factor when sentencing the offender.

The sentencing judge must state in open court that the offence was aggravated on this basis. The aggravated sentence must be within the maximum sentence for the ‘basic’ form of the offence. Unlike the 1998 act, section 66 itself does not provide for a higher maximum sentence in hate crime cases.

Once section 145 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 comes into force, section 66 of the Sentencing Code will only apply to offences motivated by hostility on the grounds of sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity to the extent that they are not covered by the aggravated offences in the amended Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

Section 66 does not make any reference to hostility on the grounds of sex or gender, and the Crime and Policing Act 2026 did not include any provision to extend it in this manner. The aggravated sentencing provisions in section 66 do not therefore apply where an offence has been motivated by misogyny.

Offences of ‘stirring up’ hatred

Part 3 of the Public Order Act 1986 sets out various offences of stirring up racial hatred, and Part 3A sets out similar offences of stirring up hatred on the basis of religion or sexual orientation. 

There are currently no equivalent offences involving stirring up hatred on the basis of misogyny. In 2020, as part of a review of hate crime legislation, the Law Commission recommended that the stirring up hatred legislation should be extended to cover sex or gender to "help to tackle the growing threat of extremist misogynist "incel" ideology, and its potential to lead to serious criminal offending". Full details of the Law Commission's research and recommendation on this issue (recommendation 23) are set out in paragraphs 10.170 to 10.216 of the Law Commission's final report (PDF).

To date, the government has not published a formal response to recommendation 23, nor given any other indication that it intends to legislate to extend the stirring up hatred offences to cover sex or gender.

The Independent Review of Public Order and Hate Crime

In November 2025, the government announced Lord Macdonald of River Glaven (Crossbench), a former Director of Public Prosecutions, would be conducting a review of public order and hate crime legislation.

The review’s terms of reference said it would examine whether the law on public order and hate crime “remains fit for purpose” and “whether thresholds and safeguards are right and effective”. The terms of reference do not make any specific mention of misogyny.

In response to a parliamentary question in June 2026, Home Office minister Dan Jarvis said Lord Macdonald had submitted his final report to the government in May 2026. He said the government was reviewing the report and would “set out its formal response and publish the report shortly”.

The cross-government strategy to tackle violence against women and girls

On 18 December 2025, the Home Office published Freedom from violence and abuse: a cross-government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls. Accompanying documents included a Freedom from violence and abuse volume 2: action plan, a summary of the evidence on What works to reduce violence against women and girls and a Freedom from violence and abuse: men and boys explanatory note.

The strategy sets out a 10-year plan to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) through a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach (which follows a commitment in the Labour Party's 2024 manifesto (PDF)). It is structured around three primary objectives:

• “prevention and early intervention”, with a particular focus on online VAWG and misogyny and action in schools, colleges and universities
• “relentless pursuit of perpetrators”, including establishing the National Centre for VAWG and Public Protection
• “support for those affected by violence and abuse”

Online misogyny

The strategy acknowledges the challenges posed by online misogyny:

Alongside entrenched sexist attitudes, new and powerful influences are shaping the fight against violence. The spread of misogynistic content online, the easy accessibility of violent pornography, and the lack of tools for parents and teachers to counter these harmful trends are challenges for the 21st century. They contribute to a culture that normalises abuse and control and must be tackled as the online root causes of real-world violence.

It notes that the Online Safety Act 2023 “goes a significant way to protecting adults from illegal content and children from harmful content anywhere in the world”.

The framework established under the 2023 act places obligations on in-scope services (for example, social media platforms) to implement systems and processes to keep users safe from harmful and illegal content. It also requires services to implement systems and processes to protect under-18s from age-inappropriate content. Ofcom, the communications services regulator, can take enforcement action against services that fail to protect users as required by the act.

Detailed information on the act is available from the online safety section of Ofcom’s website. Ofcom has also published guidance on illegal content and on what services should do to protect women and girls from online harms.