Revenge porn laws to be overhauled to help victims

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Revenge porn victims subjected to intimate image abuse will no longer have to prove their perpetrators intended to cause distress under a change in the law. Intimate image abuse, commonly referred to as revenge porn, is defined as revealing or threatening to share private explicit images or videos without the consent of the person with the aim of provoking distress. Although posting intimate images without getting consent has been criminalised since 2015, threatening to expose such content only became a crime in 2021 in the wake of Refuge’s “The Naked Threat” campaign. Georgia Harrison, a reality TV star who fell victim to revenge porn, said: “The reforms to the law that has been passed today are going to go down in history as a turning point for generations to come and will bring peace of mind to so many victims who have reached out to me whilst also giving future victim’s the justice they deserve.” It comes after Harrison’s ex-boyfriend, fellow reality TV contestant Stephen Bear, was imprisoned for 21 months in March for sharing a private video of the couple having sex.