Lord Blencathra (Con)

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood on introducing his proposed new clause and on running through the sordid details, which we did not want to hear and do not want to think about, but had to hear if we are to have better legislation, which I believe his proposed new clause will introduce. His proposed new clause is far superior to Section 69 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, since it describes the abuse of the animal and not just the perversion of the offender. It links to all the other online offences we have in the Bill—where people are publishing dangerous and pornographic pictures of abuse, strangulation, et cetera—and animal sexual abuse needs to be included there too. Therefore, I strongly support his amendment, which has also been signed by other noble Lords and my noble friend Lady Coffey. When I first saw his amendment, I was motivated to use the term “bestiality”, since I was brought up in Scots law, which had very robust words to describe illegal sexual activity—at least illegal a few years ago. Bestiality is still the term used in Scotland. I initially thought that the term “abuse” was milder than bestiality and that bestiality conveyed a more condemnatory stance of the filthy perverts who were doing this. However, after a discussion with my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood, I now agree that bestiality is a more restrictive legal term focusing on the perverted behaviour of the man rather than the abuse of the animal. Abuse is the key word here. I accept that the terminology “animal sexual abuse” is a more contemporary term emphasising the act as cruel and exploitative rather than just a taboo behaviour.