One weekday morning last November, Narinder Kaur discovered she had been the victim of a shocking, humiliating crime.
asserted
she → discover → crime
The day had started like any other – getting her teenage children out of the door for school and liaising with her husband about their respective work commitments.
But then, when the 54-year-old GB News broadcaster had a moment to herself, she opened the X app on her phone, where she has almost 80,000 followers, and was confronted by horrifying pornographic images of herself.
asserted
she → start → herself
The pictures weren’t real – someone had screenshot photographs she’d shared on her Instagram account and removed her clothing using a so-called ‘nudification’ app – but they were so convincing that no one, other than Narinder, would have guessed.
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one → have → Narinder
‘I felt utterly degraded.
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I → feel → ?
Seeing what looked like my naked body exposed to the world, I thought I was actually going to vomit,’ says Narinder, who lives in north London with husband Jatinder, director of sales for a software company, and their two children.
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who → see → company
‘Shaking, I handed my phone to my husband.
asserted
I → shake → husband
There had been other fake images and videos of me in the past, mocked up to make it look like I was being deported, and he’d seen all those.
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he → mock → those
“Look what they’ve done to me now”, I said.
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I → look → me
‘He was just as horrified but did his best to comfort me.
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He → horrify → me
Then I called my sister, sobbing so much I could barely get my words out.
uncertain
I → call → words
‘Like me, she was baffled as to why on earth anyone would want to create nude images of me, a married mother of two in my 50s, and then share them with thousands of people online.
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anyone → baffle → people
When GB News broadcaster Narinder Kaur opened the X app she was confronted by horrifying pornographic images of herself
But this is to misunderstand how the pernicious trend for creating deepfake pornography – using artificial intelligence (AI) to alter images in sexually explicit ways – has developed.
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trend → open → ways
Though younger women and even teenage girls are most often targeted by malicious posters, middle-aged and older women are increasingly becoming victims too.
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women → target → posters
Earlier this month the Daily Mail columnist Nadine Dorries, 69, the former Conservative MP and now member of Reform UK, was warned by police that pornographic deepfake videos of her had been created and circulated on the internet.
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videos → warn → internet
A 36-year-old man has been arrested and electronic devices containing thousands of AI-generated images and videos, also featuring at least three other female politicians and several celebrities, have been seized.
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devices → arrest → politicians
Newsreader and journalist Cathy Newman, 52, has also spoken out about her terrifying experience of deepfake porn, as has the 53-year-old former Cabinet minister Dame Penny Mordaunt.
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minister → speak → porn
It remains an under-reported crime because of the shame and stigma victims feel, but in a recent UK police-commissioned survey, 7 per cent of respondents said they had been depicted in a sexual, or intimate, deepfake without their consent.
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they → remain → consent
Meanwhile, the results of a poll of 2,000 UK women carried out by campaign group End Violence Against Women (EVAW) and domestic abuse charity Refuge, published this month, revealed that 18 per cent had experienced ‘image-based sexual abuse’.
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cent → carry → abuse
Unsurprisingly, while 96 per cent of the artificially generated material online is sexually explicit, 99 per cent of it depicts women.
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cent → generate → women
The motivation, it seems, is often to debase and silence the outspoken – Narinder frequently appears on TV panels commenting on issues from immigration to poverty and crime – but it can also be an act of ‘punishment’ or simply spite against women with no public profile at all.
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it → seem → profile
Indeed, so widespread has this form of abuse become that last year the End Violence Against Women Coalition joined forces with another campaign group, #NotYourPorn, to help bring about an amendment to the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
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Coalition → become → Act
In February this year, under Section 138 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, it became a specific criminal offence to create or request a deepfake intimate image of an adult without their consent.
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it → become → consent
This means that those attempting to use apps to turn innocent pictures and videos into something obscene now face up to six months in prison, unlimited fines and a criminal record.
But the problem is finding them: as Narinder has repeatedly discovered, perpetrators hide behind anonymous online profiles and delete their accounts as soon as they are reported.
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they → mean → accounts
Since that first image appeared on her X page last November, she has been tagged in messages containing at least 20 more deep-faked pictures and videos of her.
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she → appear → her
In February this year it became a specific criminal offence to create or request a deepfake intimate image of an adult without their consent
As well as ‘nudes’, shared images have included depictions of her on her hands and knees, naked and wearing a dog collar; images of her being undressed by Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, and pictures of her cuddling up to Jeffrey Epstein.
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her → become → Epstein
‘It’s incredibly humiliating and, of course, designed to undermine me.
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It → ’ → me
As someone who speaks up for women’s rights, suggesting I went to Epstein’s parties is also an attack on my integrity,’ says Narinder.
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Narinder → speak → integrity
‘Even when the original post is deleted, these images get shared over and over, and I’ll never know how many people have seen them, believing they were real.
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they → delete → them
I’m as tough as old boots, having faced a lot of harsh criticism for sharing some of my opinions on TV over the years, but
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I → ’m → years
this has really taken a toll.’
Narinder, who grew up in Newcastle, found fame 25 years ago, as a contestant in the then Channel 4 series Big Brother, before going on to present a reality TV show, Undercover Lovers, as well as local radio shows.
These days she is a regular contributor on TV current affairs programmes, including the Jeremy Vine show, Good Morning Britain and GB News.
‘I felt such despair in the early weeks that I fell into a depression, not wanting to get out of bed.
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I → take → bed
As crazy as it sounds, I blamed myself for expressing my views publicly, as if, as the old saying goes, because “I live by the sword, I must die by the sword”.
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I → sound → sword
‘My family persuaded me to see my GP, who suggested antidepressants.
uncertain
who → persuade → antidepressants
Although I took them after my brother died six years ago, and think they can be fantastic, I didn’t want to go down that route over this.
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I → take → this
I decided instead, rather than hiding away in shame, I’d join the Stop AI Abuse campaign and speak out about my experience in the hope of raising awareness, so that other women experiencing similar abuse feel less alone.’
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women → decide → abuse
Narinder has lost count of the number of victims who have contacted her since, some of them middle-aged and older women who are not in the public eye.
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who → lose → eye
‘Several of them, having left abusive relationships, discovered that ex-partners have used their innocent videos to make obscene footage,’ she says.
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she → leave → footage
‘The men have then sent these to friends with accompanying messages saying things like, “This is why I left her”.
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I → send → her
‘It’s a misogynistic crime, intended to shame, silence, demean and undermine women, and it often works.
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it → ’ → women
Although it’s humiliating for this to happen at any age – and I’m not sure how teenage girls, who are often victims, cope with it – younger people are better at detecting when AI has been used, while those who haven’t grown up with it are more likely to believe these images are real.
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images → ’ → it
‘Almost as devastating as the images of me were the comments underneath, from people who believed they were real.
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they → believe → people
…and 41 more, not listed.
The Aporia
