In a raft of new measures, James Cleverly, the home secretary, is aiming to prioritise spiking – the act of putting alcohol or drugs into another person’s drink or body without their consent or knowledge – by introducing several policies and amendments to modernise the law.

A 2022 YouGov survey reported that one in 10 women have had their drinks spiked, and according to freedom of information requests submitted by Channel 4, almost 20,000 reports of drug spiking were received in the past five years by 39 police forces that responded to the requests.

The new steps will see changes to the law, a police focus on tackling the crime during key weeks of the year, more training for door staff and better education for young people to raise awareness about spiking.

The Home Office is also planning on bringing about changes to the language in the law – updating the Offences Against the Person Act and the planned Criminal Justice Bill to make it clear that spiking is always illegal; guidance is also set to be issued that would introduce an “unequivocal” definition of spiking. The government hopes this change will improve public awareness and encourage victims to come forward and report these crimes to the police.

Alongside the planned amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill, the government has also set out a series of practical measures to tackle spiking and address some of the barriers to prosecuting the crime. Some of the changes include:

Training more door staff through the Security Industry Authority to spot potential offenders and signs people have been spiked.
Investing in research into the capability of existing spiking testing kits and the potential development of new kits for venues and police to detect if someone’s drink has been spiked in real-time.
Intensive operations run by the National Police Chiefs’ Council to tackle spiking during certain 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 report it if people fear they have become a victim of the crime, if they wish to, anonymously.
A spiking guidance toolkit for the public.

On the new measures, ACC Samantha Millar, the National Police Chiefs’ Council strategic programme director, said: “People should be in no doubt that spiking is an abhorrent crime and the new clarity in the legislation should drive that message home… We have developed a new online reporting method so that victims are able to quickly tell us if they think they’ve been spiked, and we are also working up plans for all forces to heavily focus their efforts on spiking as part of their neighbourhood work.”

The Home Office unveils new measures to tackle spiking