'It's my job to help other people': Revenge porn victim and campaigner tells Nick Ferrari her story
27 June 2023, 10:44
Campaigner and victim of revenge porn Ellesha Garner speaks with Nick Ferrari
Ellesha Garner a campaigner with #notyourporn, which fights to protect non-consenting people from image-based sexual abuse, explained how "devasting" the impact can be.
She told Nick Ferrari at Breakfast: "Back in 2018, I'd split up with a partner, and it seems that during our time together he had been secretly filming explicit videos of us. This was all without my knowledge or consent."
She continued: "Following the breakup, and the fact that I cut all ties with him, and said I didn't want to speak to him any more, he decided that he was going to post these onto his Porn Hub account...for essentially the world to see."
Ms Garner explained that another woman who had dated him after her later discovered the videos after googling his name.
"What was your first reaction?" Nick asked.
"It was a bit of disbelief really, I saw the link come through and the first message she sent was 'I don't want to worry you', which immediately starts the worrying process", she replied, explaining she was initially "confused" as to why these links were being sent to her, but after watching the videos, she realised who it was.
"Good grief, your blood must have gone cold when you saw that!" Nick exclaimed, which his guest confirmed, describing it as "completely devastating and embarrassing".
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After going through the rest of the page to check if there were other videos of her, she then reported it to the police.
"They were friendly but it became quickly apparent that they had absolutely no idea how to deal with my case, they weren't sure what steps to take", Ms Garner said, adding that as the site was blocked on their servers, she had to screen record the evidence and then show that to them.
She said police never took her ex-partner's phone or other devices to search them, and so only the evidence she had provided was given to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
The result was that they did not have enough evidence to suggest that she didn't know she was being filmed, and couldn't prove that he himself had uploaded them or that if he had, that he had done it with "intent to cause distress".
The campaigner added that new amendments to the law covering revenge porn mean "you don't have to prove that intent", something she says would have gone "a long way" to help with her case, had this legal change been in place at the time.
Police arrested him a month after her report, and Ms Garner says he "gave a 'no comment' interview".
"It's really damaged my self-worth, I've had immense trouble", she said.
Nick praised her for being a "powerful advocate" for the campaign, saying: "You're not a victim at all, you've really taken this on and really stepped up to fight on this, haven't you Ellesha?"
She acknowledged that she couldn't change what happened to her or the legal outcome of her case, but said: "I feel that it's my job now to try and help other people, and to try and make sure this doesn't happen to other people."
