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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Rachel Hall and agency

Stephen Bear jailed for 21 months for sharing sex video without consent

Stephen Bear
Stephen Bear will be required to keep police updated with his address and whereabouts for 10 years. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

The reality TV personality Stephen Bear has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for sharing a private video of him having sex with his ex-girlfriend Georgia Harrison, in a judgment confirming that sharing intimate images without consent is a serious crime.

Bear was also ordered to sign the sex offender register and given a restraining order not to contact Harrison for five years. He will have notification requirements to keep police updated with his address and whereabouts for 10 years.

Bear, 33, and Harrison, a fellow reality TV personality, were filmed on Bear’s CCTV cameras having sex in his garden in Loughton, Essex, on 2 August 2020.

Harrison, who waived her right to anonymity, told Chelmsford crown court she did not know they were being filmed and had told Bear not to share the footage. She said he went on to share it on WhatsApp and online. Bear claimed he deleted the footage that day and had not shared it with anybody other than Harrison.

In December, a jury found him guilty of two counts of disclosing private sexual photographs and films with intent to cause distress. He was also found guilty by a majority verdict of 10 jurors to two of voyeurism.

Judge Morgan said Bear had been motivated by a wish “to exploit the economic value of the recording”, and that he had caused Harrison “extensive humiliation and embarrassment”.

“I’m sure that you recognised the enhanced economic value to you by having Georgia Harrison, a well-known reality TV and social media personality, in the video,” the judge told Bear during sentencing.

After Bear was jailed, he waved from the dock and said: “Have a good evening. Enjoy the weekend everyone.”

Speaking outside court, Harrison said she was “happy and relieved that this matter is finally over”.

“Today’s sentence is a vindication of what I’ve been put through and sends a clear message that the police and the courts take this matter very seriously,” she said.

“I want to let all other victims of this crime know that I stand in solidarity with them and I have absolutely no regrets on waiving my anonymity.

“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.”

Hannah von Dadelszen, the deputy chief crown prosecutor for CPS East of England, said she hoped the case would encourage victims of other offenders to come forward, and that while Harrison had waived her right to do so anonymously, special measures could be put in place to safeguard people’s privacy.

She said: “I want to commend Georgia Harrison for the bravery and determination she has shown throughout this case. By contrast, Stephen Bear showed a complete lack of remorse by never accepting responsibility for his abusive behaviour, even going so far as to place the blame on Ms Harrison.

“Although she lives a public life, Georgia Harrison has the right to privacy. But that was taken away by Bear to make money in the most egregious way.”

Bear appeared on MTV’s Ex on the Beach and won Celebrity Big Brother in 2016, while Harrison has appeared on Love Island and The Only Way is Essex.

Ruth Davison, the chief executive officer of the charity Refuge, said: “I hope that by the court imposing a custodial sentence, that a precedent will be set, and a warning sign sent to perpetrators that intimate image abuse is a very serious crime and that the justice system recognises that.”

Eleanor Leedham, a solicitor specialising in data protection and technology law at Keller Postman, said the strength of the ruling was significant because “the tech-enabled threat of image-based abuse shared via WhatsApp and OnlyFans, such as in the case of Mr Bear, is often connected to domestic abuse, coercive control, and damage to mental health and even suicide”.

She said many public websites, including OnlyFans, had “inadequate checks and processes to prevent the upload of illegal images” and urged the government to use the online safety bill to force adult websites “to clean up their act”.

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