Nicholas Hawkes becomes the first individual to be jailed under the Online Safety Act for cyber-flashing, highlighting the legal system’s crackdown on unsolicited sexual images.
Nicholas Hawkes, a 39-year-old man from Basildon and a convicted sex offender, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison under new cyber-flashing laws for sending unsolicited explicit images of his genitals to a woman and a teenage girl via messaging apps. These offences, committed in February, utilizing his father’s phone, mark the first jail sentence under the Online Safety Act implemented in England and Wales last October, which introduced a potential two-year prison sentence for cyber flashing. The conviction aims to address and penalize the online transmission of non-consensual explicit images. In addition to his prison sentence, Hawkes received a restraining order and a sexual harm prevention order, underscoring the lasting impact of his actions on the victims and reinforcing the message that such behavior will face serious legal consequences.
In a separate legal matter, Nicholas Bidar, 36, serving an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence without a specified release date, pleaded for his freedom during a landmark public parole hearing at HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire. Sentenced over a decade ago, at 21, for a series of robberies and firing a gun at police officers, Bidar described his incarceration experience as “hell.” Despite IPP sentences being abolished, individuals like Bidar remain incarcerated, highlighting the complex challenges within the parole system and the plight of those trapped in legal limbo. The public parole review, revealing Bidar’s remorse and his plea for rehabilitation and redemption, calls attention to the ongoing struggles faced by offenders serving abolished IPP sentences.
