Stephen Bear to pay £27k over illegal sex tape of Georgia Harrison

Convicted sex offender Stephen Bear has been ordered to pay the £22,305 that prosecutors said he earned from illegally sharing a sex tape.

Bear, 34, was jailed for 21 months last year after uploading footage of himself and Love Island personality Georgia Harrison to OnlyFans.

He was released from prison in January.

During a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court, Bear was also ordered to pay £5,000 in compensation to Ms Harrison.

The court heard Bear, who served 10 and a half months of his sentence, made extensive profits from subscribers after uploading the video.

The £22,305 will be paid to HM Treasury and distributed to police charities.

The original video that featured Ms Harrison made £1,650.98, but Bear earned considerably more after his number of subscribers increased, the court heard previously.

During the Proceeds of Crime hearing, Ms Harrison told the court: “I had to live in fear that this was going to come out and my family were going to know about it.

“It was just like the worst feeling you can ever possibly imagine. I felt violated, I felt embarrassed – I hated myself for a really long time.”

Judge Christopher Morgan said the impact of the video was “devastating” and that Ms Harrison’s life was “changed forever” as a result of its publication.

He said the victim had lost money due to Bear’s criminal conduct, including losing work from brands and having to pay legal fees.

Bear’s OnlyFans account had 1,061 subscribers when he uploaded the video on 8 November 2020, the judge was previously told.

This number had increased by 822 a month after the video, which could be viewed for $9.99 (£7.95), was published.

Prosecutor Andrew Bousfield told an earlier hearing: “At this time [he uploaded the video] Mr Bear was pretending to be a billionaire on his Twitter account. His most valuable asset at that time was selling sex videos.”

Financial investigator Laura Mackenzie added the defendant’s bank account was overdrawn.

Bear, from Loughton, Essex, was jailed for 21 months in March 2023 after a jury found him guilty of voyeurism and disclosing private, sexual photographs and films.

Ms Mackenzie told an earlier hearing that she calculated the £22,305.46 based on fees paid by viewers and based on the amount of subscribers he gained.

Bear, who was supported by his father, appeared in court wearing a pink shirt with trousers and slippers.

In an earlier civil case, he was ordered to pay Ms Harrison £207,900 in damages. However, the court heard none of that had yet been paid.

Judge Morgan said that if the confiscation order of £22,305 was not paid within three months, and if Bear had not requested an extension, he faced nine months in prison.

Addressing Bear, the judge said: “For those who are imprisoned for not paying, they serve the whole term, not half, and the serving of the term doesn’t mean the amount doesn’t have to be paid.

“It remains a debt and an order that must be paid until it is.”

Bear’s criminal trial heard that although the sex was consensual, Ms Harrison was unaware the footage, captured by a CCTV camera in Bear’s garden, was being shared more widely.

Speaking outside court after the hearing, Ms Harrison said: “Nobody has the right to earn money from any crime but to earn so much from image-based sexual abuse is quite frankly abhorrent.

“I think it’s important that anyone who commits this awful crime should be made to give any money they made back to the victim and also the judicial system, especially after a successful conviction.”

She said she would give some of the money to charities “who have supported me throughout this ordeal”.