Georgia Harrison calls on the government to simplify revenge porn laws in the UK

Georgia Harrison’s life was forever altered after her ex-boyfriend Stephen Bear published a CCTV video of them having sex in his garden to OnlyFans in August, 2020. And, although Stephen was found guilty of voyeurism and disclosing private sexual photographs and films last week, Georgia says the process of finding people who commit revenge porn guilty should be much simpler than it currently is.

To find someone like Stephen guilty in the UK right now, the revenge porn law says the prosecution has to demonstrate there was malicious intent behind the action of sharing the footage.

“There’s no need to say or prove that you intended to cause embarrassment or distress,” Georgia told the BBC. “Whether you send [a private image] to 10 people or one person, you need to know the effects that that could cause on someone’s life – it’s going to upset someone, embarrass them and change their life unspeakably.”

Georgia hopes that the Online Safety Bill,  which was brought forward by the government in November, will be made into law to give additional protection to victims of revenge porn. Because, as the former Love Islander suggests, the Online Safety Bill would remove part of the 2015 revenge porn law so there’s no need to show intent to find someone guilty.

Georgia also told the BBC she was alarmed by how many other revenge porn victims have reached out to her since Stephen was found guilty. And, according to an investigation by Channel 4 News, there were nearly 19,000 victims of revenge porn (80 per cent of them women and girls) over the past four years, while 62 per cent of the suspects were male.