Sexual assault victims should be prioritised within the justice system to stop them having to endure years of uncertainty and anguish, tv character Georgia Harrison has stated.
Ms Harrison’s ex-partner Stephen Bear was jailed earlier this yr for posting intimate footage of her on-line.
She additionally referred to as for “huge on-line platforms” to be required to take down sexually specific content material which had been posted with out consent, whereas talking on the Labour Occasion convention in Liverpool.
Requested what modifications the Authorities ought to make to assist deal with violence in opposition to ladies and ladies, the previous Love Island contestant and The Solely Means Is Essex star recounted her private expertise of the justice system.
She stated: “One factor I needed to spotlight from my private expertise is I really feel there must be extra help for victims after they do select to name the police and go into the courtroom system as a result of for me, from the day that I reported the crime, it took me two complete years to get a conviction.
“After the primary yr, the defendant modified his defence every week earlier than the courtroom case. My courtroom case then obtained moved a whole yr.”
She added: “What that meant for me was that it was detrimental to my profession and my psychological well being, which was actually onerous for me.
“However I couldn’t assist however assume, think about in the event you have been both a sufferer of home abuse or a sexual assault, in the event you had been raped, and also you get a cellphone name to say ‘really you’ll have to attend an entire different yr to even get inside a courtroom’.
“You’ve got to spend the subsequent yr of your life strolling down the road not understanding if you’ll get attacked, killed, violated. How would you reside with that?”
She went on: “I believe that these form of instances must be prioritised, and 90% of these victims are ladies.”
Ms Harrison additionally instructed the convention she needed to see “huge on-line platforms” be held accountable for taking down specific content material which had been posted with out consent.
She stated: “Even whether it is content material of a sexually specific nature, movies or footage, and it has been confirmed that it was shared with out your consent, it doesn’t change into unlawful content material.
“I simply assume it will encourage so many extra victims to return ahead and attain out to the police in the event that they knew on the finish of what’s such a tough battle that instantly on-line platforms need to take away their content material which ought to by no means, ever have been allowed to get there within the first place.”
Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, responded: “I’m at all times making an attempt to remind within the ladies’s security area that we’ve to watch out we aren’t too grateful for the fundamentals that we must always have been anticipating, that if photos of you being violently abused are on-line, they need to be taken down.
“It looks as if fairly an apparent factor to do.”