For weeks my phone was filled with images of women and girls being followed and filmed across London.
They were some of the most uncomfortable videos I had seen in my career so far, as unbeknown to them, the women were being recorded by a discreet camera zooming in on their backsides.
However, unlike the usual crime footage I see, no hero police officer is swooping in. The people filming are still out there, and the 400 pieces of footage they claim to have are still on a website anyone can access.
Some women in the footage are being filmed because they wore shorts in the summer heatwave. Others wear leggings as they travel to and from the gym.
When I sent some of the example screenshots to my editors led to gasps across the newsroom. In particular, the footage of the two young girls being filmed as they ordered food at McDonald’s caused everyone to grimace.
No matter how hard we tried, it felt like muzzing the footage was never enough. Trying to find the balance between not exposing the victims anymore, but highlighting the danger of the website, was no easy task.
One woman who discovered she had been filmed was 29-year-old Eranta. As I sat on her sofa and spoke to her, as her two young children played nearby, her anger was still palpable.
Erenta was filmed three years ago as she pushed her then newborn son – now a toddler sat in the corner of the room watching Peppa Pig – along Wood Green high street.
It was by chance she found out about the video. Three months ago, a user of the website recognised her from her partner’s social media accounts, and sent him the footage.
She said: ‘Watching the video for the first time, I just felt disgust. I hate that I am just pushing my baby in a pram and someone is having sexual thoughts.’
Eranta is now hyper-aware of being followed, turning her head constantly and never wearing her AirPods out-and-about again, which she described as ‘no way to live’.
And after investigating this story, I can’t help but do the same. Men who walk at your heel during rush hour, now get a second glance. I work out if the square and black object people are holding in their hand is a DJI Osmo Pocket – the camera used by the filmers.
But unlike Eranta, most women are unaware they have even fallen victim to this vile website. But this is not only unsettling for people living in the capital – it’s a complication.
The Metropolitan Police are limited with what they can do if victims don’t come forward. Although they stated, unreservedly, they will support anyone who reports the crime to the police, their investigation will meet a slow start if they can’t speak to anyone directly affected.
How do women find out if they were one of the hundreds targeted? Metro has not published the name of the website so as not to attract more thoroughfare, so the best port of call is with the police.
All of the videos use the victims’ faces as part of the thumbnail to ‘sell’ the footage, which you can buy for the grand total of $55USD. How or why this figure was decided to be worth the value of 400 women’s privacy, I do not know.
Although a gross invasion of privacy, it’s these thumbnails that make it easy to identify those who are on the website – if they have reason to believe they were targeted.
From my investigation, videos indicate that it’s at least two men running this website, with some sources telling me they believe a third man is also involved. Using a DJI Osmo Pocket camera hidden in the palm of their hand, sometimes they are filming on their own, other times they film together.
I also discovered that many of the victims live around Stratford – so I would implore any women or girls from the area to see if they can remember men following them closely from behind either in the station or in Westfield.
It’s horrifying to think, but if it does ring alarm bells, you may have ended up on the site.
In publishing this story, Metro hopes not just to make women aware, but to help generate more intelligence on who these men are.
For now, it’s a waiting game to see what action the authorities might take in finding these men – and if they dare to still publish footage following our investigation.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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