Recently, Georgia Harrison, 28, told the Sun that she felt Britain needed “more normal people going into politics”.
Now, the former Love Island contestant is seriously considering a career in politics following a successful campaign to change the law on image-based sexual violence.
The news comes following a torturous trial that saw intimate image abuser, Stephen Bear, banged to rights in March of this year.
Bear was charged with voyeurism and disclosing private sexual photographs under Section 33 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 and is currently serving a 21-month jail sentence for sharing sexually explicit CCTV videos of Harrison on his OnlyFans account without her consent or knowledge.
The court ordered Bear to pay £207,900 in damages to Harrison, making it one of the highest-ever payouts for a breach of privacy case.
In August, Dr Kirsty Welsh, Senior Lecturer in Law and Criminology at Nottingham Law School, explained to HuffPost why an offence sexual in nature isn’t chargeable as a sexual offence, stating, “It falls under the remit of confidentiality and disclosure, meaning that being charged under it isn’t a sexual offence, even if you have disclosed intimate images.”
A month later in April, Harrison spoke with Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer and Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and attended the Labour conference held in Liverpool last month.
In June, Harrison lobbied for changes to be made to the Online Safety Bill (which is expected to become law by the end of October 2023), meaning it would be easier to prosecute people for non-consensual sharing of intimate images (otherwise problematically known as revenge porn).
As the law currently stands, intent to cause distress must be proven to reach a guilty verdict. This can be hard to prove. With these changes in place, there are hopes that it will be easier to prove non-consensual intimate image sharing took place.
On the government website, Georgia is quoted discussing the introduction of the Online Safety Bill: ’Violence against women and girls is so common, with one in three women in the UK having experienced online abuse or harassment.
‘The Online Safety Bill is going to help bring this to an end, by holding social media companies accountable to protect women and girls from online abuse.’
Making changes to UK law has set Harrison on the path to a career in politics.
Harrison told the Sun: “I had serious conversations with a couple of Labour MPs about if I could run for Essex, and they said it would be possible.
“They told me to go away and think about it. They said if I was being serious about running for an MP, it is something that they would support me with.
“I think also for little girls growing up seeing someone like me running for an MP would be quite inspiring.
“We need more normal people going into politics.”