I’m a victim of disgusting fake porn – I thought I’d never catch the culprit until key clue unmasked sick abuser
A WOMAN who was a victim of fake porn thought she would never catch the culprit until a key clue unmasked the sick abuser.
Kirsty Pellant, 44, was one of four women targeted by ex-soldier Jonathan Bates, who Photoshopped explicit pictures of his victims and posted them on websites offering sexual services.
For years, Bates evaded justice by using encryption software to hide his tracks.
But this week, the 54-year-old ex paratrooper was finally jailed for five years after his victims turned detective and cracked the case.
The breakthrough marked the end of an agonising eight-year wait for justice for Kirsty, who says the stress from the campaign forced her to quit her role as head of safeguarding at St John’s Primary School in Canterbury in 2023.
Father-of-one Bates, secured a teaching job at St John’s Primary in 2012 after leaving the Army and completing an educational conversion course.
Truro Crown Court heard that in 2015, another teacher at St John’s was horrified to find explicit images of herself online with her face Photoshopped onto the bodies of porn stars.
The teacher reported the images to Kent Police, but they couldn’t track down the perpetrator and soon after Kirsty discovered she too was being targeted.
Fake images of her appeared on porn sites, many using pictures stolen from her Facebook.
As fast as she managed to have them removed, more kept surfacing with the ordeal leaving her feeling “vulnerable, anxious, and embarrassed.”
Things took a darker turn when parents at St John’s started sharing and commenting on the images.
The school had to warn them that they could face legal action if they didn’t stop.
In a terrifying twist, one man even showed up at Kirsty’s home, believing he had arranged a date with her after seeing her on a sex site.
Others bombarded her with messages asking why she hadn’t “kept” arranged bookings.
The person behind the campaign remained a mystery, despite the efforts of Kent Police’s Cybercrime Unit, who struggled to break through Bates’ encryption.
The breakthrough came when Bates targeted a third victim, a complete stranger he had met at a funeral.
She, along with two other women, used Facebook to realise they were all linked by one thing – Jon Bates.
The three women alerted the police, who arrested the ex-soldier in 2022.
Now, Kirsty has bravely opened up about the “scars that will never heal” after being tormented by the fake images for years.
Kirsty told KentOnline: “When someone posts stuff like that about you, you just don’t know what they are capable of.
“Someone else might have even been driven to take their own life because it had such an impact.”
She also revealed the long-lasting damage: “I’m left with scars that will never heal because it takes so much out of you when you have to fight so hard for justice.
“It feels like I have lost a piece of me that I’ll never get back.”
Are deepfakes legal?
It’s illegal to share or threaten to share intimate photos or videos of someone without their consent and this includes deepfake images.
The government announced in April 2024 that it intends to make it a criminal offence to create sexually explicit deepfakes without consent.
This includes creating or designing intimate images of another person to cause alarm, distress, or humiliation.
If the deepfake photo or video appears to be real and is a close likeness to you or someone you know it may be a criminal offence.
It’s illegal to make, share and possess indecent photographs and pseudo-photographs and/or videos, including deepfakes, of someone who is under 18.
It does not matter if the person depicted is real or created using AI.
You can report this to the police.
Bates, who had served in Northern Ireland during his military career, admitted to four charges of stalking by creating fake online accounts.
A search of his home uncovered nine USB sticks packed with personal details and photos of hundreds of women, a court heard.
He was also given a 10-year order banning him from contacting his victims.
Kirsty did not attend the sentencing but watched a live-stream of the judge’s remarks.
She said: “In court, [Bates] claimed he did it because he wanted to ‘punish’ me because he didn’t feel supported while working at the school, which is rubbish.
“His defence was all ‘poor me’ but it was him who ruined my life, and now his own.
“The fact is that what’s put on the internet stays there and if you Google my name, it still says ‘slutty teacher”.
“Although I got most of it taken down, the images he created will stay there forever as a reminder of the pain he inflicted on his victims.”
With her stalker now behind bars, Kirsty says she is trying to rebuild her life after years fighting for justice.
She added: “Of course, I’m relieved it’s all over, but I still feel a bit numb and just very sad that it all happened.
“The case has been hanging over me for so long but I am looking forward to the future.”
What are deepfakes?
Here’s what you need to know…
- Deepfakes use artificial intelligence and machine learning to produce face-swapped videos with barely any effort
- They can be used to create realistic videos that make celebrities appear as though they’re saying something they didn’t
- Deepfakes have also been used by sickos to make fake porn videos that feature the faces of celebrities or ex-lovers
- To create the videos, users first track down an XXX clip featuring a porn star that looks like an actress
- They then feed an app with hundreds – and sometimes thousands – of photos of the victim’s face
- A machine learning algorithm swaps out the faces frame-by-frame until it spits out a realistic, but fake, video
- To help other users create these videos, pervs upload “facesets”, which are huge computer folders filled with a celebrity’s face that can be easily fed through the “deepfakes” app