What’s the law on spiking?

We’ve seen some confusion online following Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s claim today that “spiking will be made a criminal offence”, with some commentators saying this is already the case or accusing him of “sloppy and misleading” wording.

‘Spiking’ involves adding either alcohol or drugs to drinks without the drinker’s knowledge or consent (‘drink spiking’), or injecting someone with drugs or another substance without their knowledge or consent (‘needle spiking’).

As this Home Office fact sheet from last December makes clear, spiking is already a crime. The government’s announcement today suggests that spiking will become a specific offence—though that wasn’t made clear in Mr Starmer’s post on X.

Currently spiking may be prosecuted under a number of existing laws, including:

• Offences against the Person Act 1861
• Sexual Offences Act 2003
• Criminal Justice Act 1988.

However, none of these laws include a specific offence of ‘spiking’ or appear to directly use the term. Instead, spiking can currently be prosecuted under a number of broader offences, such as “maliciously administering poison” so as to endanger life or inflict grievous bodily harm or “administering a substance with intent” to engage in a non-consensual sexual activity.

Speaking to ITN, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls Jess Phillips MP said: “Currently spiking sits across various different pieces of legislation and isn’t necessarily that easy to spot and also charge in criminal law, so we’re going to introduce a new crime of spiking.”

In response to claims that difficulties in tackling spiking did not stem from inadequate legislation, Ms Phillips told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme [starts 1:36:00] that “new legislation in and of itself won’t necessarily change anything” but that the government was also announcing changes to the way police and bar staff deal with spiking incidents.

In a report on spiking published in December 2023 the previous government decided not to create a new “bespoke” offence, but did commit to amending its Criminal Justice Bill to “modernise the language of the current offence(s) which may help increase public awareness of the illegality of spiking and encourage the reporting of such incidents”.

These changes were introduced in January 2024, but the Bill did not pass ahead of the general election.