09 July 2023 , 09:55
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Phillip Schofield has been accused by a victim of image-based sexual abuse of aiding the perpetrator get a more lenient criminal sentence after providing a glowing character reference.
The 61-year-old fallen television star gave a character reference for for his friend Ben Perryman, 30, which the victim has claimed helped Perryman escape a severe jail sentence.
The victim saw their life turned upside down when Perryman uploaded an explicit image of him to Twitter and his 30,000 followers - before later sending a similar explicit image to the victim’s work colleagues.
The victim, who has been kept anonymous, thinks Schofield’s star power influenced the judge who then handed Perryman a suspended 12-week jail term.
Phillip Schofield quit This Morning in May and admitted he lied about having an extramarital affair with a younger male colleague (Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)The Mail on Sunday interviewed the victim who thinks justice was not properly served when the judge’s ruling was given in 2018.
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The victim told the publication: "I feel like Phillip Schofield robbed me of the justice that should have been served for a horrendous crime that someone committed."
"I was basically told that 'yeah this happened but it's not that serious, so this is the sentence that he'll get'.
"I had to live through that for a very long time, questioning myself that I overreacted to this.
"I'm angry at him [Schofield] because it just seems like an abuse of power, I guess."
The Mail on Sunday claims Schofield initially told them that he had written the character reference without knowing what it would be used for - and later claimed he could “not recall” that he was told the reference was to be used in court.
The publication also claims they received confirmation from the courts that all the people who submitted character references on behalf of Perryman had been told he had admitted his guilt of committing a revenge porn act.
The Mirror has contacted a representative of Schofield for comment.
Perryman’s case saw him plead guilty of posting a private sexual photograph without consent.
He and the victim had been in a two-year relationship since 2012 before the romance soured but limped on for three more years before imploding in December 2017.
The victim was thrown out of the house he shared with Perryman and Perryman’s mother and the next day the victim received a flurry of messages from friends alerting him to an explicit image being posted on Twitter.
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Perryman deleted the image but then sent another image to the victim’s work colleagues - which was described as “less explicit”.
The victim said he was left “devastated” and “suicidal” by the incident.
Revenge porn was made illegal in 2015 and carries a maximum jail sentence of two years.