THREATS to post “revenge porn” should be criminalised, Refuge said today as it revealed that one in seven women have been threatened with having intimate photos of them published without their consent.

The charity said that young women aged 18 to 34 are twice as likely than the general population to have intimate or sexual photos of themselves used against them in this way.

Threats to share intimate images are rising and should be made a crime, Refuge said.

Of the one in 14 women overall who received threats, 72 per cent were threatened by a current or former partner and of these, 83 per cent experienced other forms of abuse.

Refuge has launched a new campaign, the Naked Threat, as the government heads into the report stage of the Domestic Abuse Bill.

Head of policy Ellie Butt said the charity was launching the campaign as “the law urgently needs to change and the Bill provides the government with the perfect opportunity to act quickly and decisively.

“Sharing an intimate image is already a crime — rightly so — but now the law needs to move with the times and recognise that threats to share these images causes serious harm regardless of whether the threat is then carried out.”

A government spokesman said: “Revenge porn is a terrible abuse of trust and since changing the law, more than 700 people have been convicted with over 150 going straight to prison.

“Those who threaten to share such images can already be prosecuted under existing offences, but we have asked the Law Commission to make sure our laws are keeping pace with these evolving crimes.”