Two UK Men Convicted After Using OnlyFans to Exploit Women Without Consent

Two British men were convicted this month in separate cases built on the same platform: OnlyFans. Both cases involved women who did not fully consent to what was posted, or who were manipulated into it by men who profited from their images.

Alexander Tang, 37, of Shiremoor, pleaded guilty to voyeurism at Newcastle Magistrates' Court in July and was sentenced Monday, August 11, according to the Guardian and ChronicleLive. He used hidden cameras to capture 47 intimate images and four videos of a woman without her knowledge, then sold the material on OnlyFans and pocketed the proceeds.

The victim found out only after several men contacted her online, believing they'd been messaging her on dating apps and social media. She matched the photos to her own image and realized they'd been taken secretly. Northumbria Police officer PC Alex Pattinson worked with OnlyFans to remove the content and trace the money to Tang's bank account.

Tang got a 26-week suspended sentence, seven years on the Sex Offenders' Register, a ten-year restraining order, 30 hours of community service, and a 35-day rehabilitation order. He withheld device passwords during the investigation and denied wrongdoing until his guilty plea. His victim gave a statement describing "constant and exhausting anxiety," months of therapy through Rape Crisis, and nightmares. "The process requires you to relive the abuse repeatedly," she said, according to ChronicleLive.

The second case is worse. Dean Holmes, 43, was convicted of rape Thursday at Bolton Crown Court after a four-day trial, the Guardian reported. He'd already pleaded guilty to assault and controlling and coercive behaviour at the trial's start but fought the rape charge. The jury didn't buy his denial.

Prosecutor Mark Kellet told the court Holmes isolated his victim from family and friends, then pressured her to open an OnlyFans account. He set it up in her name but ran it from his own phone. She started with bikini photos. He pushed her toward far more explicit content and used the account to chat directly with paying customers.

She later told him she felt ashamed. "I can't show my face after putting myself out there showing everything," she wrote, according to court testimony cited by the Guardian. "I can't go back to work cos people will know and people seen me advertising myself." Holmes is scheduled to be sentenced September 25.

These aren't freak incidents. Women's Aid's 2026 annual report identified coercing young women into OnlyFans accounts as the most common new form of tech-facilitated abuse its frontline staff are now handling. The Revenge Porn Helpline has fielded similar complaints, according to the Guardian. An OnlyFans spokesperson told ua.news the platform bans illegal content, runs identity checks at signup, monitors payments, and cooperates with police investigations. That's the company's position. It didn't stop either of these cases from happening before law enforcement got involved.

Whether platform-level moderation can realistically catch coercion happening off-platform, in someone's own home, by a partner controlling the account, remains unclear. OnlyFans can verify who signed up and remove content once flagged. It can't see what's happening inside an abusive relationship. That limitation is real, and these cases were solved by police work and victim testimony, not platform enforcement.

Meanwhile, HBO's Euphoria has stirred its own OnlyFans controversy, though a very different one. Breitbart reported that actual OnlyFans creators, including Sydney Leathers and Maitland Ward, have criticized the show's decision to depict Sydney Sweeney's character Cassie producing content that includes dressing as a baby with a pacifier, content Leathers said would violate OnlyFans' own terms of service banning any age-play or exploitation themes. Ward argued the storyline reinforces the stereotype that sex work equals moral abandonment or trafficking. This is a dispute about fictional portrayal and industry image, separate from the criminal cases in Bolton and Newcastle, where real women were victimized by real men who used the platform to make money off them without full consent.

One case involves a TV writers' room decision drawing criticism from people in the adult content industry over creative choices. The other involves two criminal convictions with real victims, real police investigations, and a sentencing hearing still to come. Holmes faces sentencing September 25 at Bolton Crown Court. What sentence he receives, given the rape conviction on top of the coercion and assault pleas, will be the next concrete marker in a case that started with a woman being isolated from everyone she knew.