How high profile ‘revenge porn’ cases are raising awareness of a growing issue - Hywel Thomas

While emails, video calls and social media make it far easier to stay in touch with friends and family, it also leaves users vulnerable to abuse – be that through cybercrime, online bullying, or even having intimate images shared online without permission.

Image based abuse, more commonly known as revenge porn, hit the headlines earlier this year when the social media personality Georgia Harrison made the brave decision to speak out about her ordeal, after her ex-boyfriend, Stephen Bear, was jailed for sharing a private sex video of them on the website OnlyFans. Ordinarily, victims of such abuse are given anonymity to protect them from media exposure, but speaking after the trial Miss Harrison said she had chosen to speak out – and to waive her anonymity - in order to stand in solidarity with anyone who had suffered in the same way that she had.

Sadly, this sort of abuse is happening daily, and, with the internet becoming more and more accessible, and given the prevalence of recording devices such as mobile phones, the number of ‘revenge porn’, or image-based abuse victims, has increased significantly.

In 2020, a survey commissioned by the charity Refuge found that one in 14 adults in England and Wales have experienced threats to share intimate images or videos – equivalent to 4.4 million. Such threats are most prevalent amongst young people (aged 18-34), impacting as many as one in seven young women.

72 per cent of women affected received threats from a current or ex-partner, and 83 per cent of women who experienced the threat from a current or former partner also experienced other forms of abuse.

‘Revenge porn’ was made a specific offence in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill in 2014, and in June this year new laws were introduced to remove the requirement for prosecutors to prove perpetrators intended to cause distress by disclosing such material in order to secure a conviction.

However, the law still does not protect those who have only received threats to share intimate images and videos, despite evidence of the far-reaching consequences of such threats, with Refuge’s research also revealing that 83 per cent of women affected said it had impacted their mental health and emotional wellbeing.

The charity said that more than one in ten women felt suicidal as a result of the threat and one in seven felt more at risk of physical violence. These statistics are deeply concerning and highlight the desperate need for individuals affected to feel comfortable and confident in reporting the abuse and seeking redress.

Whilst deeply distressing for the victims of the cases that do hit the headlines, it is hoped that the high-profile conviction of Bear, and the recent change in the law which followed making it easier to convict perpetrators of such abuse, will act as a deterrent.

Hywel Thomas is a solicitor in the abuse law team at Simpson Millar.