Former “Love Island” star Georgia Harrison has revealed that her social media following performed an enormous half in serving to her get justice after her ex-boyfriend Stephen Bear shared personal sexual footage with out her consent. When she learnt of an express video circulating on-line, she known as upon her 1.2million Instagram followers for assist. “I simply felt like my dignity was already gone. Everybody was sending this round, it was time to get some assist,” she tells POPSUGAR.
Harrison turned the sufferer of revenge porn when a video of her having consensual intercourse with Bear was captured on CCTV cameras in his backyard in Loughton, Essex, with out her information. When Bear confirmed her the footage, she requested him to by no means ship it to anybody, solely to find it had been circulating on-line in August 2020 — together with being offered on Bear’s private OnlyFans website.
“That was simply such a devastating second for me. There’s desiring to trigger misery, after which there’s promoting that video, that I by no means even gave permission to be filmed, on the web,” Harrison provides. “To be handled like that by somebody that after you actually did take care of and love, it was simply heartbreaking considering he would try this to me.”
“This [case] goes to alter the way in which society seems at this type of a criminal offense, and for that, all I will be is grateful.”
After a gruelling two yr anticipate the trial, throughout which Harrison discovered herself with out work and compelled to maneuver again house, Bear was lastly sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Courtroom on 3 March to 21 months in jail. He was discovered responsible of two counts of revealing personal sexual photos with intent to trigger misery, in addition to receiving a majority verdict of 10-2 on the rely of voyeurism. Bear was additionally given a restraining order to not contact Harrison for 5 years, ordered to signal the intercourse offenders register, and might want to disclose his whereabouts to the police for 10 years.
Now, Harrison is decided to assist others and lift consciousness of the crime by way of a brand new ITV documentary airing on Monday, 20 March, titled “Revenge Porn: Georgia vs Bear”, throughout which she particulars the psychological and bodily toll it took on her. “I simply utterly did deteriorate. I used to be having panic assaults, I had anxiousness on a degree that you simply would not even consider. I nonetheless discover it exhausting in sure public locations the place it’s actually busy, particularly if I haven’t got a good friend or member of the family with me,” she says. “However as time has gone on, I am simply fortunate that I’ve such a powerful friendship group and such a powerful household. I’ve had remedy alongside the way in which as properly. It is simply been an enormous therapeutic journey for me, however my mates are wonderful, they make me really feel so good about myself, and that is what I would like.”
Whereas she has a powerful community round her, she additionally discovered huge assist together with her social media followers. “After I first received the message to see that [the footage] had gone viral, and it was in America, I used to be clearly actually shocked — absolutely he would not have wished this video to go viral and break my profession, but in addition his personal profession,” Harrison explains. “After which as time went on, that is after I thought, ‘I have to ask my followers to assist me’ as a result of I do know that video is on the market, individuals are watching it across the globe.”
Harrison found that folks she knew had seen the video, however have been reluctant to take motion and report it. As a substitute, the TOWIE star turned to social media to induce her followers to ship her mum, who was performing as her agent on the time, an electronic mail with hyperlinks to the video in the event that they got here throughout it. This put Harrison in a weak place, making herself identifiable within the express content material. “I requested my followers if that they had any proof and, though that took away my proper to anonymity, it actually did spotlight it was me within the video and it additionally received me the proof that meant Bear received his conviction.”
All through the traumatic ordeal, Harrison was flooded with messages from others going by one thing comparable, which led to her making the documentary. “I can now look again on it as one thing that was possibly meant to occur,” she displays. “And this [case] goes to alter the way in which society seems at this type of a criminal offense, and for that, all I will be is grateful.”
“Revenge Porn: Georgia vs Bear” is on ITV2 & ITVX at 10pm on Monday, 20 March.
In the event you or somebody you realize is a sufferer of revenge porn, the Revenge Porn Helpline has sources to assist and assist you.
