All was going well between Demi Pryor and Ryan Alford as their relationship blossomed after meeting through a mutual friend in Ashford last spring.

But huge cracks began to appear when they were alone, with 26-year-old Alford starting to monitor his girlfriend's phone.

Little did the mother know she would soon find herself at the centre of a sustained campaign of control and coercion, secretly filmed during moments of intimacy, with the footage weaponised against her.

Yet, refusing to bow down, Demi, 29, would record enough evidence for the authorities to press charges, and bravely watch from a courtroom’s public gallery as her tormentor was jailed.

But although Alford was handed 20 months at Canterbury Crown Court, Demi says she lives with the “very real fear” the footage could re-emerge.

“At the beginning of this short-lived relationship - 10 weeks or whatever it was - everything seemed absolutely fine, just like any other relationship,” she told KentOnline after the court case.

“But later he would get really, really nasty; that only tended to happen when we were alone.

“Before I knew it he was calling me names, made threats against me, threatened violence and even attacked me.”

Demi told how, during a row, Alford claimed to have secretly recorded them together on a number of occasions.

When she dismissed the remarks as nonsense, Alford presented three videos and one photograph on his phone.

Horrified, she snatched the device and deleted the material while believing the saga was over, only to later learn the footage had been stored on the internet.

“From my understanding the police still haven’t got hold of the videos and got rid of them - he still has them," Demi says.

“I know they’re out there and I’m so worried they could still be released and I have to relive all of that pain again.”

Demi waived her right to anonymity to tell her story after hearing painful and intricate details of her life discussed inside the courtroom.

Prosecutors described how Alford began “continuously monitoring her phone use” and insisted “he accompanied her when she left the house”.

He became increasingly aggressive, delivered “daily verbal abuse” and called her derogatory names, prosecutor Lily Roberts-Phelps explained.

In April last year he pinned her to the bed, shouting abuse, and would frequently accuse her of sleeping with other men.

Alford and Demi’s families were in court to hear how the defendant shouted during a tirade: “Nobody would want you.”

Then, in May, Alford claimed he had videos of them having sex - a claim she rejected.

“The defendant showed her three or four videos and a photo,” the prosecutor said.

Alford would threaten to circulate the footage on Snapchat during a subsequent stalking campaign between May and August, the court heard.

After prosecutors outlined the case, Judge Catherine Brown handed Alford 20 months custody after he pleaded guilty on the day his trial was due to start.

He admitted committing controlling and coercive behaviour in a relationship from February to May, stalking from May to August, and criminal damage on May 18.

Charges of voyeurism - a sexual offence - witness intimidation and using violence to secure entry to a premises were asked to lie on file.

Demi says she has “become happier” after having marrying a loving husband and having beautiful twins.

But she can recall those feelings of sickness and paranoia after believing strangers in the street may have seen the videos.

She pinpoints Alford’s abuse as the moment her mental wellbeing “just went through the roof”.

“When he was threatening to release the videos it honestly made me feel physically sick," she recalls.

“I couldn’t bring myself to do the school run for ages, so that had huge repercussions for my family...."

"I just didn’t want to go outside - I couldn’t leave my home.

“I just didn’t know why people were looking at me in the street - had they seen the videos or was I being paranoid?

“I couldn’t bring myself to do the school run for ages, so that had huge repercussions for my family.”

Demi says she used make-up to "conceal a black eye", and believes the stress she suffered at Alford’s hands triggered the premature birth of her babies.

“I do feel a lot better now but I’m still scared those videos might be released into the public domain, and I just don’t have any power over it" she says.

“I have to rely on the authorities to make sure they can’t be released, but it's a very real risk.

“I don’t know what can be done to prevent this sort of crime because people will do what they want.

“But there should be a deterrent and harsher sentences because someone can destroy a woman’s life.

“Within seconds that video could be out there.”

Asked what advice she would give other women who become victims of similar crimes, she said: “Just stick with it, don’t give up. There were moments I wanted to give up but I just had to go through with the prosecution.

“The judge who sentenced my abuser was absolutely amazing.”

Demi’s words of encouragement come as figures show thousands of women have their lives uprooted each year by intimate image abuse - often referred to as revenge porn.

And a boom in covert surveillance cameras and smartphones have helped fuel the crisis, says the charity Revenge Porn Helpline.

It revealed last year how the cases it sees rose from 520 in 2015 to 3,150 in 2020.

Another Kent victim was left “paranoid about being watched” after Floyd Winch, of Maidstone, uploaded secret videos of her onto a pornography site.

She was contacted by a stranger in America who discovered the video on the website, which receives millions of visitors a day.

To her disbelief, he told her the video had been watched thousands of times.

Winch was jailed for one year at Canterbury Crown Court in 2021, where a judge heard the 30-year-old used a “spy watch” to film her.

Speaking at the hearing, the woman said: “I feel very embarrassed, and more so that I have been published on a porn website and thousands of people around the world would have seen it.

“I also feel I now need to sleep in pyjamas because I’m concerned (about) what could happen in my sleep.”

Domestic abuse survivor Jo Lemaux also suffered at the hands of a former partner, who shared an intimate image of her with friends online without her permission.

Jo, who lived in Maidstone at the time, says Nathan Bishop - who was jailed in 2020 for 20 months - would use the picture to manipulate her, threatening to show it to close family members.

Jo said: "He would accompany this with the most vulgar names and, knowing the picture he held of me, I believed they were true.

"This manipulation only ended when I found myself in a women's refuge. I left my hometown to get away and keep myself and my little ones safe. This is the reality of what one picture can do to someone's life.

"If I could speak to anyone in a similar situation as me, I would tell them: do not let anyone use this as a way to control you. If they share a picture of you then they are the ones who should feel ashamed."