Part 10: Communications offences False and threatening communications offences Section 181: Threatening communications offence
This section creates a criminal offence for the sending of threatening communications that meet the threshold in the offence. A section person who sends a message conveying a threat of death, serious injury, rape, assault by penetration, or serious financial loss, and intends that (or is reckless as to whether) someone encountering the message will fear the threat will be carried out, is guilty of the offence.
	Subsection (1)(c)(i) and (1)(c)(ii) make it clear that the threatening communications offence captures threats where the recipient fears that someone other than the sender of the message may carry out the threat. This does not change the scope of this offence, which, like other existing offences to do with threats, would anyway capture threats carried out by third parties.
	With respect to threats of serious financial loss, it is a defence for a sender to show both that the threat was used to reinforce a reasonable demand and that they reasonably believed the threat was a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
	Subsection (5) sets out the penalties for this offence.
	This offence replaces the offence in section 1(1)(a)(ii) of the Malicious Communications Act 1988, which is repealed by section 189 of the Act.