Early on Friday morning, students at Our Lady of Mercy Secondary School in Drimnagh, Dublin, laughed awkwardly and turned their heads away from media cameras scoping the school hall.
Similarly, camera-shy teachers at the school could be overheard pondering the best seats to stay out of view.
The chatter among students and teachers dwindled to whispers, and ultimately to silence, as a large projected screen read: “What is Coco’s Law?”
Asked by Garda Orla Cashell what comes to mind when they hear of this law, a few respond.
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“Cyberbullying?” says one boy. “Intimate images?” says a girl, before “harassment?” is added to the list by another.
Cashell was speaking at the launch of a new lesson within the Garda Schools Programme on Coco’s Law, which makes it illegal to send or threaten to send intimate images without a person’s consent.
The law, named after Nicole “Coco” Fox, also criminalises the sending of threatening or offensive communications.
She tells the students that penalties can include fines or imprisonment, and that the law also applies to minors – something that comes as a surprise to some of the second-year pupils.
Should they receive an intimate image of someone, Cashell urges them not to delete it or forward it, but to speak to a trusted adult and report it.
“Who might a trusted adult be?” she asks. “Mam”, “teacher”, and “guard” are all deemed valid answers.
Some pupils at the school on Friday momentarily turned away from Jackie Fox, Nicole Fox’s mother, in visible discomfort, while others began to fidget or look at one another as she recounted how bullying “destroyed my little girl”.
She recalled how, “every day”, Nicole received “horrible messages” on Snapchat and other apps, in which she was told to “kill herself”.
“They even sent videos on how to do it.”
Nicole died by suicide at the age of 21 in 2018.
“Right now, standing here, I am beyond heartbroken,” Fox says.
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Telling the pupils about the law she campaigned for, she adds: “I had to lose my daughter for everyone else to gain.”
Speaking afterwards, students describe her story as “tragic”.
Abbie Cumberton (13) recalls seeing “a lot of people being bullied on social media”. “If they even post a TikTok or something, they could just get bullied for everything,” she says.
Even Burke (14) adds that people can “say what they want, whether it be nice or mean, and [have] little to no repercussion”.
Although social media allows for “very easy” communication with friends, “it’s also really easy for other people to get access to you”.
He remarks how people “try and message you and add you”.
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“But they don’t automatically become your friend. You can just turn them away and not talk to them.”
Others describe certain platforms, namely TikTok, as “very addictive”.
“My screentime is ...” Ella Campbell (14) says before stopping herself. “I don’t want to say it on the news, but it’s just very bad.”
Launching the new lesson on Friday, Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton said it would raise awareness of the “legal consequences” of breaking Coco’s Law.
It will also ensure pupils receive “clear, age-appropriate guidance on the serious and lasting impact of non-consensual sharing of intimate images”.
Since 2023, An Garda Síochána has initiated more than 400 charges and summonses for offences under the Act. This does not include cases involving juvenile offenders, which have been dealt with through the Juvenile Diversion Programme.
More than 1,860 harmful communication incidents have been recorded by gardaí in the same period. The majority (1,140) concerned the distribution, publishing or recording of intimate images.
A further 552 were incidents of distributing grossly offensive communication to cause harm.
