A deepfake porn victim is campaigning for a change in the law after face was used in x-rated images.

Writer and poet, Helen Mort from Sheffield, Yorks, was horrified to find someone had taken non-sexual images from her social media and uploaded them to a porn website.

Site users were encouraged to edit her photos onto pornography – creating deepfake material where a real image is merged with a computer-generated one.

Helen who was alerted to the images by an acquaintance told BBC Radio 5 Live's Mobeen Azhar that she wanted the creation and distribution of these images to be illegal.

She said: "This is a crime which in many cases is going on invisibly.

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"Those images of me had been out there for years and I didn't know about them, and I'm still having nightmares about some of them now.

"It's an incredibly serious form of abuse."

Some of the images were more "chilling" than others which left Helen not knowing whether to laugh or feel ashamed.

She added: "You go through different phases with things like this.

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"There was one point where I was just trying to laugh about the almost ridiculous nature of some of it.

"But obviously, the underlying feeling was shock and actually I initially felt quite ashamed, as if I'd done something wrong.

"That was quite a difficult thing to overcome. And then for a while, I got incredibly anxious about even leaving the house."

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Helen is fighting for a change to be made to the law after being told by police that there was nothing they could do.

Dr Aislinn O'Connell, a lecturer in law at Royal Holloway University of London, explained that Helen's case fell outside the current law because it was not made with the intention to cause her distress.

Nor were Helen's images private or sexual in their original publication which means it cannot be an offence.

Helen said: "I'm a writer by trade, and I thought the only thing that is going to allow me to reclaim any sense of agency here is to say something about it using my art form. That's the only power that I have.

"The intention of this person, as they said in their post, was to humiliate.

"They said they wanted to see this person humiliated, and I thought well actually I'm not humiliated, and I'm going to speak out about it because I shouldn't be the one who feels ashamed."

If you or somebody you know has been affected by this story, contact Victim Support for free, confidential advice on 0845 30 30 900 or visit their website, www.victimsupport.org.uk.

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