A businesswoman is warning young females to be wary of predators posing as photographers who dupe innocent girls into posing naked.
Tina Redmond was just 16 and in foster care when she was first approached by a sinister snapper who told her she could have a successful career as a model.
Recently, dozens of women responded in support when Emily Ratajkowski wrote a powerful essay detailing the ways she felt used by the industry.
She described how she was assaulted by a photographer and plied with alcohol during a shoot.
It prompted modelling agencies, including Models 1 managing director John Horner to draw up a voluntary code of conduct to protect his workers.
Tina said a photographer contacted her after she was turned down by a reputable agency in Dublin because she was “too short”.
The man, who she later reported to gardai, duped her into posing naked and to this day, the mother of two does not know where the images are. Tina, from Rush in North Dublin, said young women are being exploited in Ireland.
She added: “I got into this situation, I was around 16 and I feel very stupid now looking back on it.
“I was very naive and coming from a fractured family situation.
“I wanted to be a model and I did a photo shoot, but I didn’t get the job. I was too short.
“But this photographer later contacted me and he said, ‘I have an opportunity’ and it was a lot of money. I was 16.
“I wanted to have my own money, I wanted to be independent. I was in foster care and I was planning my life after foster care.
“I wanted nice things because I didn’t have nice things. I was very, very naive.
“I didn’t have a good start, I was sexually abused as a child, and it left me in a really bad way.
“But there was a lot of money involved with this particular man and it started with posing in underwear and I was getting €150 per shoot, I never had any money before that.
“The more I took my clothes off, the more money I got. You just get caught up int it. It moved from topless to naked. It got really bad then, when he kept asking me to pose with other women and do things. He wanted me to pose with men naked.
“I said, ‘No, this has to stop’. So, he got a bit worried. And then he said, ‘Let’s just do a normal shoot in the Wicklow Mountains’.”
Tina said her “amazing foster carer” discovered what was happening and put a stop to the situation.
She added: “When he called to the house to collect me, she went out and said, ‘I know what you’re doing and I’m phoning the police’.
“He drove off and we never saw him again and she did phone the police to make a complaint.
“I just feel stupid when I look back on it, but I was coming from a place of where I suffered very bad sexual abuse and didn’t have a proper childhood.”
Tina, who is writing a book about her life in care, said she wanted to share her story to help others who may be caught up in a similar situation.
