Home Office - Understanding and tackling spiking

The Home Office has announced that spiking will be targeted by the police and door staff in a range of new measures unveiled today (Monday 18 December) by Home Secretary James Cleverly.

The new package will include changes to the legislation, research into self-testing kits, more training for door staff and better education for young people to raise awareness about the threat but stops short of the creation of a specific spiking offence.

There will also be coordinated police action to crack down on spiking at key times of the year – an approach that has proved successful in tackling other crimes, such as knife crime.

Measures will include clarification of the Criminal Justice Bill affirming that spiking is illegal. New guidance will also be published to provide an unequivocal definition of what spiking is. This is intended to give victims renewed confidence to come forward, increase public awareness of the crime, and enforce that perpetrators could face up to 10 years imprisonment if found guilty.

Whilst there will be no specific new offence of spiking other measures announced include:

• training hundreds more door staff to spot potential perpetrators and signs patrons have been victimised,
• investing in research into spiking testing kits to help venues and police detect if someone’s drink has been spiked in real-time,
• intensive operations run by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) to tackle spiking during key weeks across the 43 police forces in England and Wales,
• an online spiking tool to be rolled out to all police forces to make it easier to anonymously report it if people fear they have been a victim of the crime,
• updated statutory guidance to include spiking (s182 Licensing Act 2003), and
• a spiking guidance/advice toolkit for the public that contains a range of resources and signposting for anyone who is looking for information on spiking, what it is, who is affected, how to report it, how to support victims, and which criminal offences can be used to prosecute it.