Exclusive:
A mum whose intimate moments were exposed on social media by a vengeful ex-boyfriend says the crime of ‘revenge porn’ makes the victim feel powerless and ashamed
When her phone buzzed with the message that threatened to ruin her life, Holly Whitmore was standing at home in the kitchen. Her ex-boyfriend Akim Nicholson had taken their break-up badly, and was frequently emailing her. But this message was different. “Check your Snapchat,” it said.
A feeling of dread rushed over Holly. Hands shaking, the mum of two opened the social media app and what she saw made her blood run cold. Wannabe rapper Akim, 35, had secretly filmed Holly while they were being intimate. In an act of so-called “revenge porn”, he had taken screenshots of parts of her body and shared footage on the platform.
“I felt sick,” Holly, 36, a social worker, says. “Everything just stopped around me. My heart stopped. All I remember of that moment is saying ‘Oh my God! Why is he doing this? Why?!’”
Holly just had time to panic about how this might affect her daughters, aged 14 and 16, before the phone notifications began flooding in. Akim had tagged Holly and urged others – including a person with 2,000 followers – to share the post. She says: “To my horror, it didn’t end there. It actually went to thousands and thousands of people. It was shared via Snapchat, TikTok and also WhatsApp. He even tagged my account to the video. I was devastated. I was screaming inside my head and wanted to claw my way into the phone screen to make it stop. He told me, ‘You’re finished’ and ‘Your whole year just got ruined.’ He said he was going to make me go viral.”
Holly, from Birmingham, first met Akim when they were teenagers. He contacted her again in 2019 on social media. At the time she was feeling vulnerable, as a previous partner was stalking her, plaguing her with phone calls and displaying persistent threatening behaviour. Akim offered her a shoulder to cry on, and they were friends for a few years before things turned romantic.
Holly says: “Akim saw and heard all that was happening and positioned himself as my friend, tried to make out that he was being supportive and was disgusted with my ex’s behaviour. In my head, being a victim at the time, I was very vulnerable. Things were cloudy for me.”
When they began dating in May 2022, Holly and Akim’s relationship started well, and her new man was “very funny, supportive, loyal and a good listener”. But looking back she now believes he was “love bombing” her – a manipulative tactic in which someone overwhelms their partner with affection and attention early in a relationship.
“He was promising the world from the start. He said he wanted marriage and children with me,” she says. Then, after only a few weeks of dating, Akim was arrested after he spitefully raided his mum’s house following an argument. He broke in with a brick, video called his mum then poured bleach on the floors and smashed up the house, causing £6,000 worth of damage.
This was a red flag to Holly, and in June she ended things with Akim. He had already been in and out of prison, and in January 2023 he would go on to be jailed for two years and nine weeks for the break-in at his mum’s. Holly says: “I thought I don’t want to be with a guy who is in and out of jail. My confidence was coming back and I was beginning to see things clearer, and he was being controlling towards me.”
When Akim was released early from prison last August, he tried to rekindle their romance. But Holly wasn’t interested. “I could see the bigger picture and I didn’t want to be with him, and he wasn’t happy,” she says. “I blocked his number and that’s why he started emailing me.”
When Akim posted the intimate video last December, Holly instantly contacted the police. Akim went on the run and was finally arrested in January after a six-hour stand-off at a pub in Birmingham, where he had been hiding out. He punched an officer and threatened them with a knife, then fled to the roof and pelted police with bricks and fire extinguishers.
In October, he was sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court to four years for a number of offences, including disclosing a private sexual film involving Holly. In addition he admitted affray, threatening another with a knife, three counts of assaulting an emergency worker, causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress, and criminal damage.
Although Holly is pleased that he is behind bars, she considers four years nowhere near long enough. She is now focusing on picking up the pieces of her life and caring for her two teenagers. She says: “My daughters are on TikTok the whole time, so I was so worried they would see the video. I had to explain to them what had happened, which is a horrible thing no mother should have to do.”
Holly now suffers from trauma and struggles to sleep. She says: “It’s one of the worst things someone can do to you. It’s a gross violation of trust, and once it’s online you feel powerless. I was ashamed, embarrassed, and turned into a nervous wreck.”
She now plans to start a charity to help support other victims of crimes like this. She adds: “I’m trying to put the story out there so people in a similar situation to me know the shame is not theirs. It is the perpetrators’. They are trying to make you ashamed, but you shouldn’t be. Now, I want to make his disgusting behaviour go viral.”
Fear and distress
Sharing private sexual material, either photos or videos, of another person without their consent or with the purpose of causing embarrassment or distress became illegal in 2015.
Leading obscenity lawyer Myles Jackman has worked on many similar cases, supporting victims of both genders.
He says: “It’s a really quite disgusting thing to do and it will be very upsetting for the victim. It’s deliberately calculated to put the person in some level of fear, alarm, distress or embarrassment. It’s a violation of consent usually, but not exclusively, by someone who has been in some level of relationship with someone but broadly in order to get the images in the first place.”
If this happens to you or someone you know, Myles advises first screenshotting any evidence and going to the police — and adds it is a crime that is usually easily provable.
He adds: “You should also report the material to the social media companies to get it removed, but it can be difficult to get them to act swiftly.”
- For more information, visit the Revenge Porn Helpline at revengepornhelpline.org.uk or call 0345 6000 459
