A teenager has spoken of the "hell" she experienced after an ex-boyfriend maliciously leaked naked selfies she had sent him, which were later used by strangers to blackmail her.

Now, she and her mum are calling for young people guilty of 'revenge porn' to be dealt with more seriously, and are hoping to raise the profile of what they believe is a nationwide problem...

Schoolgirl Eleanor* was on a family holiday abroad in 2016 when her boyfriend of 10 months asked her to message him a nude photo.

The 14-year-old obliged, sending a handful of pictures through the social media app Snapchat.

Those receiving messages on the app can only view a picture for a matter of seconds before it disappears, unless they ‘screenshot’ their phone - alerting the sender.

“If someone screenshots it, you get a notification,” Eleanor explained.

“But I didn’t get a notification, so as far as I was aware he hadn’t saved them.”

A couple of months passed and Eleanor soon forgot about the images.

That November, she was left heartbroken when her boyfriend broke up with her.

But things soon took a nasty turn.

“He turned a lot of friends against me and caused loads of bullying at my school,” she said.

“The boys would call me a ‘slag’, throw things at me, push me up against the wall, pull my hair, and I was completely ostracised from my friendship group.

“My close friends would message me on social media but wouldn’t speak to me in real life.”

The bullying grew so severe it began affecting Eleanor’s health.

She developed anxiety, which saw her struggle to sleep and started losing her hair.

She was prescribed beta blockers by her GP, who signed her off from school.

Eleanor eventually moved to a different school in Kent.

'My close friends would message me on social media but wouldn’t speak to me in real life...'

“I settled in really quickly, and was making loads of new friends,” she said. “Everything was getting back to normal.”

But a fortnight after she started, she received a life-changing message from a friend from her old school.

“She wrote 'I just thought you should know I've been sent this', and sent me one of the pictures I’d sent to my boyfriend,” Eleanor recalled.

“That was just the tip of the iceberg.”

It soon became clear the photos, taken nine months previously, had been spread to a huge number of people - including a boy at Eleanor’s new school.

“It spread like wildfire,” she said.

“Pretty much everyone in my year had seen them, if not everyone in my school.”

Strangers soon began messaging Eleanor about the photos.

“People would send me one of the pictures and then say ‘If you don’t send me any more I’m going to spread this around’,” she said.

“It got out of control very, very quickly.

'Pretty much everyone in my year had seen them, if not everyone in my school...'

“I felt really embarrassed that people had seen me like that, really ashamed.

“Having strangers message me and threaten me was also really scary.”

For two months, Eleanor kept what was happening from her parents.

“I asked people to delete the photos, said please don’t look at them,” she said.

“I’d seen this happen to other girls and it normally just went away.

“I was thinking ‘OK, this is an awful, horrendous thing, but if I give it a week or two everyone will have moved on’. But it just carried on.”

In desperation, Eleanor eventually contacted Childline, which signposted her to the National Crime Agency’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command (CEOP).

“CEOP was so concerned about the blackmail they went straight to my school, who then contacted my mum,” she said.

Revenge porn - the “sharing of private, sexual materials, either photos or videos, of another person, without their consent and with the purpose of causing embarrassment or distress” - is a crime in the UK.

Those found guilty of it can be sentenced to up to two years in prison and fined.

Furious and upset about the ordeal her daughter had endured, Eleanor’s mum, Maggie*, phoned the police, and officers arrived the next morning to take statements.

“Within a week or so, the ex-boyfriend was arrested,” said Maggie. “Then two other boys from the same school were arrested, their phones were seized.

“Eleanor was interviewed and had to explain the same thing again and again.”

But 20 long months later, in March 2019, Eleanor and Maggie were told the case was being closed.

“It made me really angry that it took nearly two years for no outcome,” said Eleanor. “I feel like the only person who suffered as a result of what he did was me.”

'I still feel so let down and frustrated and angry...'

Maggie added: “This child had gone through hell - surrendered her phone, had gone through all the humiliation of having to go over and over this in front of her mum and dad - and for what?

“I still feel so let down and frustrated and angry.

“No, Eleanor shouldn’t have sent those photos, but she’s still paying for it all these years on.

“She sent them in good faith, privately.

“She was 14, he was her first boyfriend; she loved him, she trusted him.

'He sat with those images for months, and then distributed them to cause maximum distress...'

“He didn’t just show them to someone a couple of days later. He sat with those images for months, and then distributed them to cause maximum distress.

“That’s calculated, it’s malicious; it was done deliberately, not on a whim.

“Those images are out there now forever. Eleanor will never know who’s seen them.

“You can’t take it back, it can’t be undone.”

Eleanor is now at sixth form in Canterbury.

'Those images are out there now forever. Eleanor will never know who’s seen them...'

But she feels issues like this are endemic amongst young people.

“It’s definitely a nationwide problem, if not a worldwide problem,” she said.

“When I began sharing my story, a girl from my old school pulled me aside and said ‘This happened to me too - my pictures were spread around’.

“This has happened to my friends in Canterbury, too.

“My friend’s boyfriend secretly filmed them having sex and then spread the video around.”

Eleanor added that one of her male friends fell victim to a similar incident, when a girl shared nude photos of him.

The mother and daughter are now determined to raise awareness of the prevalence of such incidents.

Maggie is calling for a nationwide survey of young people, from older primary-aged children to those at university, to allow them share their experiences of revenge porn, sexual harassment and assault, and to gauge the scale of these issues.

She also wants to see teenagers guilty of revenge porn offences to be dealt with seriously.

“Eleanor’s ex-boyfriend was 15-years-old when he did this,” she said.

“The age of criminal responsibility in the UK is 10.

“This needs to be nipped in the bud, during that first brush with the law.

“Even if a handful of people were prosecuted, it might make people think before they do it.”

Maggie also feels more should be done to dissuade people from sharing explicit images of other people.

“I do think there should be more education on this in schools but I don’t think a man in a suit coming in and telling you not to send naked photos to your boyfriend or girlfriend is the way to go about it,” she said.

“Because they are going to do it.

“The message I want kids to receive is ‘Don’t save, store and send something that is not yours’. That’s the crime.”

Sexual violence is 'a cultural problem' as website highlights extent of the issue

A Canterbury head teacher says more needs to be done to tackle the casualisation of sexual violence.

Paul Pollard, who leads Simon Langton Girls’ Grammar, says the issue is societal and “extends beyond schools”.

He was speaking after thousands of people shared their personal experiences of sexual violence, harassment and abuse on a website set up to gather testimonies.

The Everyone’s Invited site – which is committed to “eradicating rape culture” – was created as a platform for people to submit their stories anonymously.

Mr Pollard said: “There is, undoubtedly, a cultural problem at the heart of this, one that extends beyond schools and pervades all areas of our lives.

“While the spotlight may be on schools at this moment, we are nothing more than a microcosm of what happens in wider society.

“Without this becoming a polemic, it is hard to read and hear the testimonies of victims without questioning how the casualisation of sexual violence, and a culture in which many see it as acceptable to use abusive, threatening, language and behaviour, does not stem from a belief that it is not only acceptable, but unsanctionable; just evidence the low conviction rates for rape if you want to see that.

“When we allow people to hide their identity through the anonymity of 24/7 social media, when children access pornography and see it as a ‘normal’ relationship, and while women and girls fear walking on their own along public streets (the list could go on), are we meant to be surprised that individuals are not being heard and allegations are either ignored or swept under the carpet?”

Mr Pollard says all schools, including Langton Girls’, have dealt with issues where “consent has been misused or ignored and where social media has been used to humiliate and shame”.

He added: “Following the murder of Sarah Everard, many of our students spoke openly about their own fears, about the things shouted at them in the streets by male teenagers and passing men.

“It was shocking to hear, although something we all know happens.

“Our students are angry, not just about these issues as shown through Everyone’s Invited, but also those so clearly highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement and Reclaim the Streets.

“They want to see actions; they want to see change.

“This change only happens through education, but it also only happens when there is a need, an insistence, an urgency, that it occurs.

“All schools are talking to their students about these issues, but whether we are doing so in loud enough voices and with enough regularity is for each of us to decide.

“I know our school will be talking much more; not simply to allow individuals to use their voices, but so that we become the change we want to see.”

More than 11,000 submissions have so far been made to the Everyone’s Invited site, with Education Secretary Gavin Williamson describing the allegations as “shocking and abhorrent”.

“No school – whether an independent school or state school – should ever be an environment where young people feel unsafe, let alone somewhere that sexual abuse can take place,” he wrote on Twitter.

He added that “any victim of these sickening acts” should raise their concerns with someone they trust, such as a teacher, family member or the police.

*Names have been changed to protect anonymity

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