The trolls who take sneak photos of you through your TV and turn it into porn: How images can be lifted from screens and end up on revenge porn sites

Nikki Elliot first met Oliver Whiting when he interviewed her for a job at the Sovereign Harbour, a pub-restaurant overlooking the marina in the Sussex resort of Eastbourne. He was the restaurant manager and she was applying for a job as a waitress.

Nikki got the job and worked closely with the man she knew as Olly for 18 months. ‘He seemed like such a normal guy, though with hindsight some of the things he did were a little weird,’ she told the Mail. ‘He was always really nice to me, but some of the staff complained about his mood swings and said he could be a nightmare to work for.’

Olly Whiting was most certainly a nightmare, but not merely as a temperamental boss, as Nikki has discovered to her continuing cost. ‘Shadows make me nervous now, and I am even worried in my own home and want the lights on at night,’ she says, strain passing over her face.

Sophisticated spyware, which can switch on and then control cameras on a victim’s computer or ‘smart’ TV can be used to make revenge porn (file picture) 

Whiting is an illustration of how little one can know a person, of the darkness that can lurk beneath the surface, of the distorted workings of a damaged mind hidden behind a friendly and familiar face.

Late last month, he received a caution from police for an offence under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015. The fact that it was a caution makes it all sound rather trivial, but there was nothing inconsequential about the shame and fear he instilled in a group of innocent young women — one of whom was his own sister.

Whiting, 36 and a father of one, posted explicit images of 13 women on a website that serves as a forum for users wanting to express their most disturbing sexual fantasies — and exact revenge on those who have supposedly wronged them.

These so-called ‘revenge porn’ sites are one of the darkest incarnations of the internet, housing images of now-spurned former partners who once voluntarily posed in a sexually provocative way, thinking they were taking part in something intimate and private with someone they could trust.

But it’s not just those who willingly — some might say naively, even foolishly — take and send such images who can end up as the victims of revenge porn.

Some images are lifted from social media sites and manipulated on-screen to turn them into pornography. Others are stolen using sophisticated spyware, which can switch on and then control cameras on a victim’s computer or ‘smart’ TV.

Oliver Whiting, who posted pictures of women on a degrading pornography website where twisted people share their disgusting fantasies, including faked images of a teenage girl

Whiting was an avid supplier of such pictures, a man who expressed his violent sexual fantasies via the keyboard. In one instance, he posted photographs of a former girlfriend naked, imploring viewers to ‘rape this slut, she deserves it’.

Most, however, were of women — like Nikki — who had never been involved in a relationship with Whiting. In some cases, their faces were merged with the bodies of porn actresses by computer manipulation to create obscene images. Sometimes the images were simply stolen from Facebook — innocent images, like that of a woman with her child.

There were pictures, too, of his younger sister, Charley Hough — one as a 16-year-old schoolgirl and another as a pregnant woman of 21. ‘Proper jailbait,’ was Whiting’s verdict on the earlier photograph.

Nikki, 25, from Eastbourne, was the woman with the child — her three-year-old daughter, Olivia. ‘I was so shocked when I heard the images were being posted online,’ she says. ‘They are truly sick.

‘In some, my head was photo-shopped onto the body of a porn star in the most debasing positions. He has hunted down the most degrading images possible and then, very expertly, put my head on top of them. It really is very disturbing to see.

‘Worse than that are all the comments he has attached to the images, telling other men what I needed — and a lot more worrying things.’

But it is the image of her daughter Olivia that causes Nikki the greatest pain. She winces at the thought of her child’s likeness being pored over by nameless men.

‘That image is still on the website because the company is based in the U.S. and police tell me they do not have jurisdiction to ask for it to be removed. I feel I have failed as a parent.’

But Laura Higgins, founder of the Revenge Porn Helpline, says: ‘It is not as clear-cut as: “It’s in America so we can’t take it down.” It very much depends on the site. Some sites can be helpful because they do not want to be caught up in anything illegal.

‘As for others abroad, while it may now be illegal in Britain to upload such images, it is not illegal for people in other countries to host them — unless they are images of minors.’

Copyright infringement can be used to persuade some overseas sites to take down images but that must involve pictures taken by the victim his or herself.

Because of grey areas such as this, campaigners say that far more still needs to be done to bring police up to speed on fighting revenge porn, pointing out that to date just 7,500 out of 100,000 police officers in England and Wales have received specific digital crime training.

Whiting, a labourer, was arrested after four women complained about him, but was given just a caution after admitting that he had posted the pictures

Since the images were posted, Nikki has received online messages from men saying they want to rape her, some of them posing naked while holding pictures of her.

Whiting’s own online comments are no less disturbing. In his posts on revenge sites he fantasises about raping and beating women — and while readers may find it upsetting, we feel some of his comments deserve repetition to show just how repugnant and aggressive they can be.

‘Push the slag on to the bed and start choking her and spitting in her face,’ he writes. ‘Then punch her straight in her slag nose, breaking it, while she’s screaming. I start to rape her.’

He finishes one post with a photograph of his 21-year-old sister Charley, accompanied by the words: ‘Now, my pregnant sister.’

Charlotte White, also from Eastbourne, knew Whiting well — he played darts in the same team as her mother. But, like Nikki, she was never in a relationship with him.

‘I considered him a friend,’ she says. ‘He seemed a nice, straightforward guy and we would often chat on the phone or meet up for a drink.

Nikki Elliott, a former colleague of Whiting, also appeared on the site alongside obscene messages from men

‘When I first heard this about him, I thought someone was setting him up because they had a grievance. I still believed in him and couldn’t accept he had done this dreadful thing to me.’

What motivated Whiting?

‘He clearly thinks we’re attractive and gets a buzz from men perving over our pictures,’ says Charlotte, a 23-year-old care home worker. ‘He just likes to do this to women he fancies.’

Whiting wrote that he would pay £100 to rape Miss White.

‘What he did makes me feel sick and violated,’ she says. ‘I don’t know why but I also feel ashamed. I know it’s wrong but that is just the way I feel.

‘One (post) said he wanted me to be raped and get pregnant, then to be raped again so I miscarried the baby.’

Whiting was arrested after three women, alerted to the existence of the online images, complained to the police. Despite the sinister content of his posts, he was given not so much a slap on the wrist as a mere tap.

The 2015 Criminal Justice and Courts Act makes it an offence to disclose a ‘private sexual photograph or film’ without the consent of the individual who appears in it and if it is intended to cause that individual distress. Images manipulated on computer can in some cases violate the new law, which carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail.

Between April and December last year, 1,160 people came forward to complain about revenge porn, including the parents of three children who were just 11 years old. A third of complainants were under 19, but the average age was 25. Three-quarters of victims were female.

In only 11 per cent of cases was a perpetrator charged. No action at all was taken in 61 per cent of cases.

Laura Higgins says older people can be just as vulnerable as naive teens. ‘One of our first clients was a lady in her 50s who had been targeted a few years earlier,’ she says.

‘The attacker was sending (sexually explicit) pictures of her to her adult son. He started out being quite supportive, but in the end couldn’t deal with it and there was a bit of a family breakdown.

‘The victim felt hugely responsible for the trauma caused to her son.’

Mainstream social media sites have become better at taking down offending images quickly, but this is far from the only place these images get posted, and many pictures linger on the net for years.

In most cases, victims’ names are attached to pictures but sometimes a nickname is used to prevent the victim finding them while searching under their name.

Attackers have even been known to challenge victims to track images down. A fifth of cases involve computer manipulation of images, while 80 per cent are based on real nude images, originally obtained with the victim’s consent during a relationship or secretly via webcams controlled with malicious software — spyware. This allows the webcam to be controlled remotely, from another computer.

Between April and December last year, 1,160 people came forward to complain about revenge porn, including the parents of three children who were just 11 years old (file pic)

The spyware may be installed by an ex-partner, but equally it could be installed by a stranger hacking into your computer.

In 2014, ‘high-tech peeping Tom’ Andrew Meldrum amassed thousands of images of two women — including many naked shots — after he installed software to control their webcams under the guise of repairing their computers.

‘Smart’ TVs that connect to the internet may also be vulnerable in the same way.

‘We have dealt with one couple who were filmed making love in their living room through their smart TV by someone who had taken control of it,’ says Ms Higgins. ‘The footage just appeared on a website.

‘Friends had seen it online and told them. The victims had no idea it was there — they had not made any personal videos and no names were attached to the online footage identifying the people in it.

‘But they could recognise their living room and from the angle the video was taken they worked out that it must have been filmed from the webcam that was attached to their smart TV.’

Webcams on TVs are becoming common as people use them for gaming or Skype communications. Like laptop webcams, they can by taken over by hackers and switched on without the owners’ knowledge.

‘There was no communication from anyone to the couple — no blackmail threat or revenge-type message,’ says Ms Higgins. ‘So the conclusion must be it was a random attack — we just don’t know.’

Malicious posting of images can result in marital breakdown, if infidelity is disclosed, and ruined careers. Post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts are common in victims, as is self-harm (file pic) 

Malicious posting of images can result in marital breakdown, if infidelity is disclosed, and ruined careers. Post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts are common in victims, as is self-harm.

Nikki, who is engaged to fiance Dan Taylor, suffers sleepless nights due to fear that someone may try to enact the sick fantasies posted with images of her and Olivia.

‘There are all sorts of creeps on these pornographic websites and people living on my road may have seen them,’ she says.

‘I’m trying not to think about it so I can get on with my life. But then I keep thinking people are looking at me strangely. I worry they might have seen the images and are judging me, thinking that the pictures are real.’

For Nikki, there was no warning of what was to come. ‘He (Whiting) was always very friendly and never lost his temper,’ she says.

But in hindsight, there were indications of a warped personality. ‘He messaged one of my friends [who he didn’t really know] telling her how beautiful she was and she was a bit freaked out by it,’ remembers Nikki.

‘He would look up disturbing things on the internet and tell me about them — strange sexual practices. On reflection, it seems he really was disturbed. I worry he may just go back to this type of behaviour because he was let off.’

Whiting once worked at another pub in Eastbourne, the Nuthouse, until he was forced to resign for reasons that remain unclear.

‘He thought he was the life and soul of the party and was always cracking jokes and making lewd remarks,’ says a former colleague.

‘But it came as a complete shock when we heard he had received a caution for revenge porn, and some of it was against his own sister. His family must be reeling.’

Whiting’s sister, Charley, is furious with the police for failing to take stronger action against her brother. She was informed about the obscene posts just four days after giving birth to her first child, ruining her early days of motherhood.

‘Just the thought of Olly still walking around, having indecent thoughts, makes me sick,’ she says. ‘I am honestly disgusted with the police. I never want to see him again — he is evil.’

Not all offenders get off as lightly as Whiting.

Last September, Samuel Bishop, from Stourbridge in the West Midlands, was jailed for 40 weeks and ordered to pay £2,000 compensation after admitting two counts of disclosing private sexual photographs with intent to cause distress. He had altered a woman’s Facebook picture to make it a sexual image before distributing it online.

But it is not only the victim who can lose control of an image — the perpetrator can, too. Once released into cyberspace, pictures can be reproduced time and again, becoming ever harder to erase.

Ms Higgins says the recovery process for those attacked by revenge porn must sometimes involve coming to terms with the fact that a vile and degrading image can remain out there on the web for years — possibly forever.

Sussex police are now re-examining Whiting’s case following adverse publicity about the leniency shown to him.

Nikki Elliot wants him put away as a warning to others — and to give her some peace of mind. ‘Olly Whiting is disturbed,’ she says.

‘I am now living my life constantly looking over my shoulder.’