Georgia Harrison has opened up about the trauma of revenge porn, days after Stephen Bear was found guilty for one count of voyeurism and two counts of disclosing private sexual photographs or films with the intent to cause distress.
‘Something like this makes you feel completely worthless - people are looking at you and having sexual gratification over you and it's completely out of your control,’ Harrison told the BBC. ‘It affects you for a really long time, I've always compared it to grief - sometimes you think you're ok and then suddenly you are just in sheds of tears, and you just can't help it.’
The reality star also explained that in the two years since she began criminal proceedings against ex-partner Bear, she was passed over for several TV projects and other opportunities.
‘My agent had conversations with brands, but when they looked at who they wanted to book for a specific job, because of what happened, I was just a red flag,’ Harrison explained. ‘It's been really hard and there's been a couple of times that I did just have a massive breakdown, television was always my passion and [producers] just couldn't consider me.’
While Harrison had the right to remain anonymous due to voyeurism being a sexual offence, the 28-year-old chose to waive her right in order to raise awareness of the effects of revenge porn on victims. She has more than 1.1million followers on Instagram, many of whom have followed her journey and keenly awaited the verdict of the trial hoping she would achieve justice. A ‘concerning number’, she says, also contacted her to share they too had been victim of revenge porn.
You shouldn't need to prove that the revenge porn perpetrator intended to cause distress.
Now, she is proudly supporting the Online Safety Bill, put forward to be made law by the government in November, which proposes to bolster revenge porn laws. Currently, according to the law introduced in 2015, prosecutors are required to show that there was malicious intent behind the perpetrator’s actions – something Harrison feels is unnecessary.
‘There's no need to say or prove that you intended to cause embarrassment or distress,’ she explains. ‘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.’
Harrison hopes to speak in schools to educate young people about the traumatic impact of revenge porn. Bear is now due for sentencing at the end of January and could face up to four years in prison.