The website OnlyFans allows users to upload images and videos and monetise the content. Photograph: Carlos Barr\u00eda\/Reuters<\/p>\n
During Holmes\u2019s rape trial, Bolton crown court heard that he had isolated his victim from her family and friends and coerced her to open an OnlyFans account. Mark Kellet, prosecuting, said: \u201cShe said he put pressure on her to start making money on OnlyFans, a website where people pay for intimate content. She said that he pushed her into that. She would upload pictures of herself and the defendant would use the account to engage in text conversations with the men.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court heard that Holmes had set the account up in her name and operated it from his phone. She had initially posted pictures of herself in a bikini, but he told her she needed to upload much more explicit content.<\/p>\n
She later told him that she felt ashamed after these images had been circulated on the site. She messaged him to say: \u201cI can\u2019t show my face after putting myself out there showing everything \u2026 I can\u2019t go back to work cos people will know and people seen me advertising myself.\u201d Holmes is due to be sentenced on 25 September.<\/p>\n
Tang pleaded guilty to one count of voyeurism and was given a 26-week suspended prison sentence on Wednesday. His victim discovered what had happened after being contacted by several men who thought they had been speaking to her on social media and dating apps; she had no idea she was on these sites. She later discovered the profiles had images of her, some naked, taken without her permission or knowledge.<\/p>\n
When she realised that the pictures had also been posted on OnlyFans, she contacted Northumbria police. Their investigations confirmed that Tang had been selling these non-consensual images, with the money going straight into his bank account. Tang had managed to take a photograph of the woman\u2019s ID to create an OnlyFans account. The company later removed the images during a routine content moderation check.<\/p>\n
In a statement she read out to the court at Tang\u2019s sentencing hearing, his victim said: \u201cI cannot get the images, the videos, or the degrading captions and comments associated with them out of my mind. Knowing that intimate images and videos of me were uploaded to dozens of websites, reposted and shared by strangers, is something I struggle with every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n Sign up to First Edition<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Alex Pattinson, the investigating officer, said: \u201cI am horrified by Alexander Tang\u2019s crime, which is a clear violation of this woman\u2019s expectation of privacy. No one should ever experience what this woman has gone through \u2013 and to then learn Tang was profiting from his deceitful offending must have been devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n An OnlyFans spokesperson said: \u201cOnlyFans has a zero tolerance policy for illegal content and invests heavily in measures to prevent our platform being abused in this way, including strict onboarding processes, payment controls and ongoing account moderation. We work closely with law enforcement and are proud of the work we do to support investigations and help secure convictions.\u201d<\/p>\n Refuge, the UK\u2019s largest domestic abuse charity, said its staff had supported a number of survivors \u201cwith cases which involve the weaponisation of OnlyFans by perpetrators\u201d.<\/p>\n Speaking earlier this summer about the charity\u2019s concerns generally (rather than in relation to these two convictions) Emma Pickering, who leads Refuge\u2019s tech-facilitated abuse and economic empowerment team, said: \u201cWhile OnlyFans already requires creators to submit proof of consent at the point of upload, for survivors to be properly protected from harm it is essential that this is robustly implemented and monitored.\u201d<\/p>\n In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline<\/a> on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women\u2019s Aid<\/a>. In the US, the domestic violence hotline<\/a> is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the national family violence counselling service<\/a> is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two men have been convicted this week in separate criminal cases that revealed they had posted explicit content…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-746237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782846071_379_1000.jpg\")
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