Connect with us

Published

on

After Amy Hart appeared on Love Island, men started sending her unsolicited pictures of their penises online.

As her social media following grew to one million after being on the show in 2019, she says she was consistently tagged in ‘dick pics’.

“You’re flicking through the Instagram stories you’ve been tagged in and they just pop up,” the 31-year-old tells Sky News.

“These people tag loads of women in the public eye so they can say ‘this list of people have all seen my penis’.”

Amy Hart after appearing on Love Island in 2019. Pic: PA
Image:
Amy Hart after appearing on Love Island in 2019. Pic: PA

Journalist Sophie Gallagher received 120 images of a stranger’s erect penis via her iPhone’s AirDrop function while she was travelling on the London Underground in 2017.

Despite turning the Bluetooth settings off, having campaigned on the issue ever since, she now receives similar images on social media and by email.

“This is by no means unique to me,” the 32-year-old says. “Anyone in the public eye – celebrities, politicians – are bombarded with it constantly.”

Sophie Gallagher, 32. Pic: Mal Vaja
Image:
Sophie Gallagher, 32. Pic: Mal Vaja

Cyber flashing became a criminal offence in England when the Online Safety Act was passed on 31 January this year.

Today a man is due to be sentenced for it in England for the first time. It has been an offence in Scotland since 2009.

Nicholas Hawkes, 39, from Basildon, Essex, sent unsolicited photos of his erect penis to a woman and a 15-year-old girl on WhatsApp on 9 February and subsequently pleaded guilty to two counts of sending a photograph or film of genitals to cause alarm, distress or humiliation.

‘Forcing women into sexual contact’

Consultant forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes says that men who commit cyber flashing fall into two categories.

“There’s a small group of men who do this as part of a fantasy that the women involved are going to feel aroused by this behaviour,” she says.

“But the vast majority do it as a form of male dominance – as a way of forcing women into a form of sexual contact with them – to cause them distress, shock, horror, or fear.”

Recalling her experience, Sophie says she felt “angry”, which then changed to “shame, guilt and embarrassment”.

“I was embarrassed people might think I was just looking at these pictures on my phone on the tube,” she says.

Professor Clare McGlynn, law professor at Durham University, who helped advise the government on the new law, says both physical indecent exposure and cyber flashing instil the same fear in victims.

“It’s the same harm, the same intimidation, the same fear of what’s going to happen next – it’s just happening in different ways,” she tells Sky News.

She also says that cyber flashing can often prove harder to escape from.

“You can’t get away online. It’s more difficult because our phones are in our hands every day. We need our phones and our laptops for our work, schooling, private lives, banking, shopping, etc.”

But while Professor McGlynn and campaigners say the first sentencing shows “good progress”, prosecutions will still likely be difficult.

Read more:
Cyber flashing on public transport ‘under-reported’
Love Island star says she got death threats from a 13-year-old

In 2023 the law on so-called ‘revenge porn’ was changed so that victims only need to show a lack of consent to their images being shared.

The cyber flashing legislation, however, requires proof that either the perpetrator intended to cause distress, or gain sexual gratification, and was reckless as to whether or not it would cause distress.

Amy says: “The law is great progress, but it needs to go further and become consent-based. Because to me they could just say it was a joke – and then it’s fine.”

Amy Hart in London in 2022. Pic: PA
Image:
Amy Hart in London in 2022. Pic: PA

Professor McGlynn adds: “It doesn’t make sense, we’ve got two different standards for two very similar offences.

“Sending someone a dick pic without consent should be the offence.

“The reason is that it doesn’t matter what the person was intending, it’s still harmful to you.”

She says the differing legal standard suggests the government “isn’t taking cyber flashing as seriously as it ought to” and “doesn’t recognise it as being as harmful” as sharing people’s intimate images without consent.

‘Short-skirt-drunk-woman argument for new generation’

Amy and Sophie say they have blocked users, deleted photos, and turned off certain settings to avoid seeing unwanted images – but it rarely solves the problem.

Sophie says: “I turn my AirDrop off, that has solved that, but what’s the next thing? Technology is constantly evolving so the next thing will be deepfakes, AI, a new social media platform.

“The argument that we should ‘just stop using social media’ is the short-skirt-drunk-woman argument for a new generation.

“It blames the victim – rather than the perpetrator – and minimises how important our online lives are and the right we have to live safely online.”

Amy Hart in July 2022. Pic: PA
Image:
Amy Hart has to be careful about details she shares online. Pic: PA

Amy adds that there are some men who have threatened to turn up at her home.

Now she lives with her boyfriend and their one-year-old son, she says: “I can’t say where we are and what we’re going to be doing tonight in real time – because it’s not hard to work out where I live.

“Especially now I’ve got a baby – I do feel quite unsafe sometimes.”

Is cyber flashing a ‘gateway’ offence?

Last month a report into the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by former police officer Wayne Couzens revealed he had tried to show colleagues violent, extreme pornography and allegedly shared sexually graphic images with young women.

During the investigation it emerged Couzens had been linked to an alleged indecent exposure incident as far back as 2015.
Image:
Wayne Couzens. Pic: Metropolitan Police

Wayne Couzens at a McDonald's drive-thru in Swanley, Kent. 27 Feb 2021
Image:
Couzens at a McDonald’s drive-thru in Kent where he exposed himself in 2021. Pic: Met Police

The mother of Libby Squires, who was abducted, raped and murdered by Pawel Relowicz in Hull in 2019, has stressed that he had watched women through windows and broken into their homes to steal intimate items in the weeks before he killed her.

Pawel Relowicz still
Image:
Pawel Relowicz. Pic: Humberside Police

Pawel Relowicz still
Image:
CCTV of Libby Squires’s killer Pawel Relowicz in Hull. Pic: Humberside Police

In the cyber flashing case in Essex, the defendant being sentenced today was already a registered sex offender having been convicted of sexual activity with a child under 16 last year.

Ms Daynes says that non-contact sex offences are often a “gateway” to physical, violent crimes.

“Often it’s a gateway offence, or one you see alongside other sexual offending, but sometimes it exists on its own,” she says.

“We’re still trying to figure out who will just operate in the virtual world – and those who will take it offline – for whom simply imagining the reaction of their victim isn’t enough.”

Professor McGlynn argues that while recent cases have “put the spotlight on non-contact offences”, they don’t just serve as ‘gateways’ or ‘red flags’.

“It’s not possible to say one leads to another,” she says. “Individuals offend in lots of ways that overlap, which means you have to take these offences seriously in and of themselves.

“Exposure and cyber flashing are men being intimidating and threatening, so we should take them seriously for that reason – not only because we think they’ll lead to a more ‘major’ offence.”

Platforms need to do more blurring/blocking

All four women say social media platforms need to do more to prevent people from seeing harmful images – both from strangers and people they know.

They fear a “reality-rhetoric gap”, with such a high burden of proof for the new offence, will mean police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will be reluctant to pursue cases.

Professor McGlynn says the provisions elsewhere in the Online Safety Act have meant regulator Ofcom’s guidance on what platforms should do is “weak”.

“They don’t have to block or blur nude and explicit images because the Online Safety Act is not telling them they have to,” she says. “And that completely misunderstands the harm – the harm is being sent them – just because you can delete them does not make it okay.”

Meta says that on WhatsApp, media sent by anyone not in a user’s contacts is automatically blurred – but this isn’t the case for people users are already connected with.

On Instagram, it says changes have been made to direct message requests so “you can’t receive any images or videos until you’ve accepted their request to chat”.

Apple says there are settings to stop others from seeing a device on AirDrop and sending it content, as well as a ‘sensitive content warning’ option that appears before users can open media that may contain nudity.

FILE PHOTO: Facebook's new rebrand logo Meta is seen on smartphone in front of displayed logo of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Whatsapp and Oculus in this illustration picture taken October 28, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Image:
Meta runs Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. Pic: Reuters

FILE - The Apple logo is illuminated at a store in the city center of Munich, Germany, Dec. 16, 2020. Apple plans to suspend sales of the Series 9 and Ultra 2 versions of its popular Apple Watch for online U.S. customers beginning Thursday afternoon, Dec. 21, 2023, and in its stores on Sunday, Dec. 24. The move stems from an October decision from the International Trade Commission restricting Apple's watches with a Blood Oxygen feature as part of an intellectual property dispute with medical technology company Masimo. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)
Image:
Pic: AP

Sefer Mani, of the CPS in the East of England, argues the first cyber flashing case from Essex “shows the new law is working” and added: “Cyber-flashing is a grotesque crime. Everyone should feel safe wherever they are. I urge anyone who feels they have been a victim of cyber flashing to report it to the police and know that they will be taken seriously and have their identities protected.”

A government spokesperson added the Online Safety Act is a “deterrent” to cyber flashing, which gives police “the clarity they need to tackle offenders and keep people safe”.

An Ofcom spokesperson said it has proposed “robust measures” for tech firms and is consulting “at pace” on further enforceable changes. It expects to complete its consultation by the end of the year.

Continue Reading

UK

The Godfather-style gang war gripping two major cities – with brutal attacks caught on camera

Published

on

By

The Godfather-style gang war gripping two major cities - with brutal attacks caught on camera

It’s like The Godfather, one reformed drug trafficker tells me.

The mythical gangster film centred on an organised crime dynasty locked in a transfer of power.

Communities in Scotland currently have a front row seat to a new war of violence, torture, and taunts as feuding drug lords and notorious families grapple for control of Glasgow and Edinburgh.

There have been more than a dozen brutal attacks over the past six weeks – ranging from fire bombings to attacks on children and gun violence.

A firebomb attack in Scotland
Image:
A firebomb attack in Scotland

Victims left for dead, businesses up in flames

Gangsters have filmed themselves setting fire to buildings and homes connected to the associates and relatives of their bitter rivals.

The main aim, they boast, is to “exterminate” the opposition.

The taunting footage, accompanied by the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group, has been plastered over social media as part of a deliberate game of goading.

A 12-year-old boy and 72-year-old woman were left for dead when teenagers wearing balaclavas burst into a home in north Glasgow.

Garages and businesses have gone up in flames. Shots were fired at an Edinburgh house.

Signals are being sent of who wants control of Scotland’s dark criminal underworld.

A firebomb attack in Scotland that saw a man through an incendiary device through a building window
Image:
A firebomb attack that saw a man throw an incendiary device through a building window

A house after it was set on fire by two individuals in Glasgow
Image:
The fire attack set to the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group

What’s caused the gang war?

The former director of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, Graeme Pearson, explains how a “vacuum of leadership” is playing a part.

Last October, Glasgow-based cocaine kingpin Jamie Stevenson, known as The Iceman, was jailed after orchestrating a £100m cocaine shipment stashed in banana boxes from South America.

The mob leader was one of Britain’s most wanted, running his business like another on-screen criminal enterprise: The Sopranos.

The 59-year-old fugitive went on the run before eventually being hunted and apprehended by police while out jogging in the Netherlands.

Jamie Stevenson. Pic: Police Scotland
Image:
Jamie Stevenson. Pic: Police Scotland

Pic: Crown Office
Image:
Pic: Crown Office

‘Old scores to settle’

But paranoia was running rife about how this notorious gangster could be brought down. Was there a grass? Was it one of their own?

It further fuelled divisions and forced new alliances to be forged across Scotland’s organised criminal networks.

It wasn’t until The Iceman case came to court that it was revealed an encrypted messaging platform, known as EncroChat, had been infiltrated by law enforcement.

It ultimately led to Stevenson pleading guilty.

Ex-senior drug enforcement officer Mr Pearson told Sky News: “It is a complex picture because you have got people who are in prison who still want to have influence outside and look after what was their business.

“On the outside you’ve got wannabes who are coming forward, and they think this is an opportunity for them, and you have got others have old scores to settle that they could not settle when crime bosses were around.”

Read more from Sky News:
Scientists find strongest evidence yet of aliens

Widow has ‘no regrets’ over helping husband’s suicide

Graham Pearson
Image:
Graeme Pearson

Mr Pearson describes a toxic mix swirling to create outbursts of violence unfolding in Scotland.

He concluded: “All that mixes together – and the greed for the money that comes from drugs, and from the kudos that comes from being a ‘main man’, and you end up with competition, violence, and the kind of incidents we have seen over the past four to six weeks.”

New wave of violence ‘barbaric’

Glasgow man Mark Dempster is a former addict, dealer, and drug smuggler who is now an author and respected counsellor helping people quit drinking and drugs.

He describes the “jostle for power” as not a new concept among Glasgow’s high profile gangland families.

Mark Dempster is a former addict, dealer and drug smuggler who is now an author and respected counsellor
Image:
Mark Dempster

“There is always going to be someone new who wants to control the markets. It is like The Godfather. There is no difference between Scotland, Albania, or India,” he said.

Mr Dempster suggests a shift in tactics in Glasgow and Edinburgh in recent weeks, with 12-year-olds being viciously attacked in the middle of the night.

“It is barbaric. When young people, children, get pulled into the cross fire. It takes it to a different level.

“At least with the old mafiosa they had an unwritten rule that no children, no other family members. You would deal directly with the main people that were your opposition.”

Police Scotland is racing to get control of the situation, but declined to speak to Sky News about its ongoing operation.

It has been suggested 100 officers are working on this case, with “arrests imminent”.

But this is at the very sharp end of sophisticated criminal empires where the police are not feared, there are fierce vendettas and, clearly, power is up for grabs.

Continue Reading

UK

Laws may need to be bolstered to crack down on exploitation of child ‘influencers’, senior MP suggests

Published

on

By

Laws may need to be bolstered to crack down on exploitation of child 'influencers', senior MP suggests

Laws may need to be strengthened to crack down on the exploitation of child “influencers”, a senior Labour MP has warned.

Chi Onwurah, chair of the science, technology and innovation committee, said parts of the Online Safety Act – passed in October 2023 – may already be “obsolete or inadequate”.

Politics latest: Follow live updates

Experts have raised concerns that there is a lack of provision in industry laws for children who earn money through brand collaborations on social media when compared to child actors and models.

This has led to some children advertising in their underwear on social media, one expert has claimed.

Those working in more traditional entertainment fields are safeguarded by performance laws, which strictly govern the hours a minor can work, the money they earn and who they are accompanied by.

The Child Influencer Project, which has curated the world’s first industry guidelines for the group, has warned of a “large gap in UK law” which is not sufficiently filled by new online safety legislation.

Official portrait of Chi Onwurah.
Pic: UK Parlimeant
Image:
Official portrait of Chi Onwurah.
Pic: UK Parlimeant

The group’s research found that child influencers could be exposed to as many as 20 different risks of harm, including to dignity, identity, family life, education, and their health and safety.

Ms Onwurah told Sky News there needs to be a “much clearer understanding of the nature of child influencers ‘work’ and the legal and regulatory framework around it”.

She said: “The safety and welfare of children are at the heart of the Online Safety Act and rightly so.

“However, as we know in a number of areas the act may already be obsolete or inadequate due to the lack of foresight and rigour of the last government.”

Victoria Collins, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for science, innovation and technology, agreed that regulations “need to keep pace with the times”, with child influencers on social media “protected in the same way” as child actors or models.

“Liberal Democrats would welcome steps to strengthen the Online Safety Act on this front,” she added.

‘Something has to be done’

MPs warned in 2022 that the government should “urgently address the gap in UK child labour and performance regulation that is leaving child influencers without protection”.

They asked for new laws on working hours and conditions, a mandate for the protection of the child’s earnings, a right to erasure and to bring child labour arrangements under the oversight of local authorities.

However, Dr Francis Rees, the principal investigator for the Child Influencer Project, told Sky News that even after the implementation of the Online Safety Act, “there’s still a lot wanting”.

“Something has to be done to make brands more aware of their own duty of care towards kids in this arena,” she said.

Dr Rees added that achieving performances from children on social media “can involve extremely coercive and disruptive practices”.

“We simply have to do more to protect these children who have very little say or understanding of what is really happening. Most are left without a voice and without a choice.”

What is a child influencer – and how are they at risk?

A child influencer is a person under the age of 18 who makes money through social media, whether that is using their image alone or with their family.

Dr Francis Rees, principal investigator for the Child Influencer Project, explains this is an “escalation” from the sharing of digital images and performances of the child into “some form of commercial gain or brand endorsement”.

She said issues can emerge when young people work with brands – who do not have to comply with standard practise for a child influencer as they would with an in-house production.

Dr Rees explains how, when working with a child model or actor, an advertising agency would have to make sure a performance license is in place, and make sure “everything is in accordance with many layers of legislation and regulation around child protection”.

But, outside of a professional environment, these safeguards are not in place.

She notes that 30-second videos “can take as long as three days to practice and rehearse”.

And, Dr Rees suggests, this can have a strain on the parent-child relationship.

“It’s just not as simple as taking a child on to a set and having them perform to a camera which professionals are involved in.”

Read more from Sky News:
Four killed as cable car crashes to ground near Naples

Two dead and five injured in shooting at Florida university

The researcher pointed to one particular instance, in which children were advertising an underwear brand on social media.

She said: “The kids in the company’s own marketing material or their own media campaigns are either pulling up the band of the underwear underneath their clothing, or they’re holding the underwear up while they’re fully clothed.

“But whenever you look at any of the sponsored content produced by families with children – mum, dad, and child are in their underwear.”

Dr Rees said it is “night and day” in terms of how companies are behaving when they have responsibility for the material, versus “the lack of responsibility once they hand it over to parents with kids”.

Continue Reading

UK

Two arrested on suspicion of murder after disappearance of woman in South Wales

Published

on

By

Two arrested on suspicion of murder after disappearance of woman in South Wales

Police investigating the disappearance of a woman in South Wales have arrested two people on suspicion of murder.

Paria Veisi, 37, was last seen around 3pm on Saturday 12 April when she left her workplace in the Canton area of Cardiff.

She was driving her car, a black Mercedes GLC 200, which was later found on Dorchester Avenue in the Penylan area on the evening of Tuesday 15 April.

South Wales Police said it was now treating her disappearance as a murder investigation.

A 41-year-old man and a 48-year-old woman, both known to Ms Veisi, have been arrested on suspicion of murder and remain in police custody.

Detective Chief Inspector Matt Powell said he currently had “no proof that Paria is alive”.

The senior investigating officer added: “[Ms Veisi’s] family and friends are extremely concerned that they have not heard from her, which is totally out of character.

“Paria’s family has been informed and we are keeping them updated.

“We have two people in custody, and at this stage we are not looking for anybody else in connection with this investigation.

“Our investigation remains focused on Paria’s movements after she left work in the Canton area on Saturday April 12.

“Extensive CCTV and house-to-house inquiries are being carried out by a team of officers and I am appealing for anybody who has information, no matter how insignificant it may seem, to make contact.”

Read more from Sky News:
Zelenskyy hits out at US envoy
Four killed in Naples cable car crash

Ms Veisi is described as having long, curly black hair.

She was last seen wearing a black zip-up gym top over a red top, black trousers and trainers, and was carrying a small handbag.

Continue Reading

Trending