Sophie Robinson
Television personality Stephen Bear has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for non-consensually sharing an intimate video of his ex-girlfriend Georgia Harrison.
The 33-year-old reality star shared CCTV footage via WhatsApp of him having sex with Ms Harrison in August 2020. It was later uploaded to OnlyFans without her consent.
He has been ordered to sign the sex offender register and given a restraining order from Harrison for five years, requiring him to update the police on his location for the next ten years.
“This incident […] caused her to move away from her home in Essex for two years because Stephen Bear lives nearby”
Georgia Harrison’s Ordeal
Ms Harrison waived her right to anonymity, saying that she has been “through hell” since 2020.
She told reporters outside Chelmsford Crown Court: “What I’ve been put through sends a clear message that the police and courts take this matter very seriously”.
She continued: “I hope that this puts anyone off committing this sort of crime and I hope for anyone else who has been a victim of it [that] it gives them some sort of justice”.
Ms Harrison, who appeared on Love Island in 2017, commented on how this incident impacted her career and even caused her to move away from her home in Essex for two years because Stephen Bear lived nearby, and she “cannot stand to be near him”.
“inadequate checks and processes to prevent the upload of illegal images”
The deputy chief crown prosecutor for CPS East of England, Hannah von Dadelszen, commended Ms Harrison for her bravery and condemned Mr Bear’s behaviour, including his attempts to place the blame on his ex-girlfriend.
Harrison is set to front an ITV2 documentary about her ordeal
Online regulation against image-based abuse
Eleanor Leedman, a solicitor specialising in data protection and technology law at Keller Postman said that image-based abuse is “often connected to domestic abuse, coercive control and damage to mental health and even suicide”.
She urges the government to use the online safety bill to protect victims of this abuse as websites such as OnlyFans have “inadequate checks and processes to prevent the upload of illegal images”.
Featured image courtesy of Philipp Katzenberger via Unsplash. License can be found here. No changes were made to this image.
