Revenge porn victim uses £100,000 in damages to remove images from the internet

A victim of revenge porn is using the £100,000 in damages she’s been awarded to contract a specialist company to remove her material from the internet.

The unnamed woman won a landmark Supreme Court case last month in which the judge ruled she had been a victim of “image abuse.”

This was the first reported civil ruling of its kind after it emerged that her ex-partner had used hidden cameras to upload images to her on porn sites.

The High Court ruled last month that Stuart Gaunt, 57, should pay her £100,000 in damages, in what is believed to be a legal first.

Speaking out for the first time, she said she is using the money in the groundbreaking case to try and erase the footage of her from the internet so she can be a “beacon of hope” for other revenge porn victims.

The court heard last month how Gaunt set up microscopic cameras in her bathroom to surreptitiously film her while she was naked. He then uploaded the images to a pornographic website alongside a photo of her face so she could be identified.

When she first spoke about the case, the 48-year-old woman told The Times how she had been in love with Gaunt, sharing the same bed and house with him before realizing her horror situation.

She told the publication that she met Gaunt on Tinder in 2016 and described him as “debonair” and “a catch.”

The two moved in together after a few months, but she told him that she wanted to stay from sex until marriage because of her Christian faith.

One day in October 2017, she walked past his computer screen and saw a black dog, but she clicked play on the video which was indecent footage of a child.

She said she then searched his computer and scanned Gaunt’s hard drives. It was then that she discovered images of herself.

The woman said she discovered footage of her sleeping with no clothes on, a clip of her in the shower and of her cleaning the bathroom.

She then alerted the police who found the microscopic cameras.

Gaunt was later convicted of voyeurism in September 2020 and received a two-year suspended sentence.

But despite the conviction, the woman explained how it didn’t prevent her images from still being online.

“I sit on trains and look around and worry that someone has seen the video,” she told The Times.

The unnamed woman won a landmark Supreme Court case last month in which the judge ruled she had been a victim of ‘image abuse’ (file image)

High Court Judge Ms Justice Thornton last month ruled that the woman should be awarded £97,041, citing PTSD resulting in a ‘permanent personality change’ as a result of Gaunt’s actions.

In the ruling, Ms Justice Thornton also criticized the term revenge porn, stressing that it ‘creates the impression that a victim somehow deserved what happened to them’.

The court has now ordered reputation management company Igniyte to remove the images of the woman.

It scans the internet for the material and any copies of the images. Since the woman does not own the copyright of the images, the court ruling proving voyerism and image-based sexual abuse can be cited. The total will probably take about six months.

But the woman added: ‘Unfortunately it will never be over. There is a constant fear that material is stored somewhere that I have no knowledge of.’

In last month’s landmark statement, the victim explained how she had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression and PTSD following the horrific revelations.

She told the court, “I have become like a hermit. I manage to work, but only because I am allowed to work from home.

“I’m reluctant to ever leave the house and find an excuse not to go out. I have tried to overcome this, but find it impossible. I tend to do all my shopping online.

“I have real trust issues. I can’t trust people. Having traveled I become paranoid about hidden cameras filming me. I’ll look everywhere for cameras – in air-conditioning vents and behind seats.’

She added: ‘I will not try on clothes in a store for fear of being filmed. The fear does not let you go and is constantly there. I’m always afraid that someone is watching me that I don’t know anything about.

“I still have nightmares about what happened. I wake up sweating. I’m completely off social media. It’s a matter of self-protection.’