Porn showing choking could be made illegal in NI

Pornography showing strangulation or suffocation is to be made illegal in Northern Ireland under plans by Stormont's justice minister.

Naomi Long said she will seek Northern Ireland Assembly approval to adopt legislation on the issue which is currently passing through Westminster.

The government plans followed a review that found depictions of choking were "rife" on mainstream pornography sites.

Long warned that if the issue was not addressed, "we are going to see an epidemic of this kind of behaviour - and it is putting young people's lives at risk".

Both the possession and publication of such material will be a criminal offence, under amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill currently progressing through Parliament.

Speaking at Stormont on Tuesday, Long said: "I've been engaging with the UK government and intend, subject to the agreement of members of this house, to extend this provision to Northern Ireland to ensure that similar protections are afforded here."

The Alliance Party minister said current legislation already criminalises extreme pornographic images portraying acts which threaten a person's life.

But she told the assembly a review commissioned by the previous UK government raised concerns that images of non-fatal strangulation or suffocation "may not be caught by the offence".

"Worryingly the review also highlighted that strangulation and suffocation pornographic content is rife on mainstream platforms," she added.

"The provision proposed in the Crime and Policing Bill implements the recommendations of that review, that depictions of non-fatal strangulation and suffocation should be clearly and explicitly captured in illegal pornography offences."

Non-fatal strangulation and suffocation are already illegal across the UK including in Northern Ireland.

But the minister said its "depiction in pornography normalises this behaviour" and the review found it was "having a malign influence on men and boys' perception of its real-world impact".

Long warned how the previous study had found a "significant number of young women around the age of 14 had already been subject to suffocation and strangulation".

"So if we don't get to grips with this now, we are going to see an epidemic of this kind of behaviour - and it is putting young people's lives at risk."