Stephen Bear made £22k from sex tape, court hears

Former TV personality Stephen Bear made £22,305 after he uploaded a sex tape without the consent of his ex-partner, a court has heard.

Bear, 34, was jailed for uploading footage of himself and Love Island star Georgia Harrison to OnlyFans.

A Proceeds of Crime Act hearing heard the original original video made £1650.98 but earned considerably more after his subscribers increased.

The hearing will determine whether Bear should pay the court for his crime.

Opening proceedings at Chelmsford Crown Court, the prosecution said: "Mr Bear is not a billionaire. He has £60,000 in a house and not much else."

"At this time [he uploaded the video] Mr Bear was pretending to be a billionaire on his Twitter account. His most valuable asset at that time was selling sex videos."Financial investigator Laura Mackenzie said: ""He wasn't a billionaire at all, no. His bank account was overdrawn.

Bear's OnlyFans account, entitled "HollywoodBear", had 1,061 subscribers when he uploaded the video on 8 November 2020, she added.

This number increased by 822 after a month of the video being published online, which could be viewed for $9.99 (£7.95), Ms Mackenzie said.

Bear, from Loughton, was jailed for 21 months after a jury found him guilty of voyeurism and disclosing private, sexual photographs and films.

He was released from HMP Brixton, in London, earlier this month after being jailed in March 2023.

Ms Mackenzie said she calculated the £22,305.46 profit from the video by including the specific profits from people who paid for the video and the amount of subscribers gained on his OnlyFans account.

His criminal trial heard that although the sex was consensual, Ms Harrison was unaware the footage, shot in Bear's garden, was being shared more widely.

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