Dozens of upskirting crimes were recorded in Thames Valley in the past few years, new figures have revealed.

Upskirting is where someone uses a camera or phone to take photos or videos underneath a person’s clothes without their permission and was outlawed in England and Wales in 2019.

A Freedom of Information request submitted by the Radar agency showed that 26 upskirting offences were recorded in the last two years by Thames Valley Police, with 14 of these in 2022 and 12 in 2021.

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Andrea Simon, End Violence against Women Coalition director, said: “It is vital we take this behaviour seriously, so those who do it know they will face consequences for it, but also to prevent the potential escalation of sexual offending.

"We need to think about upskirting as connected to all the other forms of harassment and abuse that women experience, it is a harmful violation in its own right and it's also connected to the fears that women have about the risk of other forms of sexual violence, and the calculations we are always making about our safety.”

Across England and Wales, 721 upskirting crimes were recorded in 2021 and 2022 across 38 forces – 96 per cent of victims with a recorded gender were female.

With 37 of these forces providing details of how the incidents were followed up, 86 (12 per cent) of these crimes resulted in a charge or summons.

In Thames Valley, one of the upskirting crimes led to a charge or summons at the time of the request.

A spokeswoman for the victim support charity SARSAS explained that upskirting was a spectrum of sexual violence which can be devastating and long-lasting in affecting someone’s mental and emotional health, social life and relationships.

She said: "Alongside some of the trauma symptoms caused by the act of upskirting itself, many victim-survivors also live with the fear that the images may still be out in the public domain and wonder who has and hasn’t seen them.

"This can have a further profound effect on mental health and self-esteem, stopping them from living their lives in the way they would have done before."

Separate Ministry of Justice figures show there have been 356 prosecutions involving upskirting since the law was changed.

Of them, 262 led to a conviction.

A government spokesman said: "We created a specific offence to tackle upskirting because it is an abhorrent and degrading crime which no one, especially children, should have to experience.

"We are also investing record funding into policing and up to £7.4 million in projects to tackle the root causes of violence against women and girls."