EssexLive
The labourer turned Celebrity Big Brother winner from Essex faced charges over uploading a video of himself having sex with Love Island and TOWIE star Georgia Harrison to his OnlyFans account. At EssexLive we had the date of Bear’s trial in our diaries for months. We knew, due to the celebrity involvement, this trial would be covered by all the national news sites, which would make it difficult for us as a local site to break through. We knew we needed to give ourselves the best chance of standing out, and believed we deserved to. We cover Chelmsford Crown Court week in week out and both the alleged victim and defendant were not just celebrities, they were residents in the county we represent. EssexLive went on to become the authority on the case due to our live coverage, which was read almost 200,000 times with readers spending an average time of a minute engaged.
Chief reporter Ellis Whitehouse blocked out his diary for the trial and we prepared a live blog in advance of the start of the trial as we knew this could be our unique selling point. We provided detailed live updates from inside the court room and explainers of court jargon and processes. Each day’s coverage was accompanied by live Twitter updates from Ellis. He built up an engaged following who were going directly to him for the latest on the trial. This was all followed up for the sentencing hearing where we launched a new blog running for the day, which was read more than 67,000 times.
At the start of the trial where there was a packed out press bench of journalists, we believe we were the only news site live blogging. At the sentencing other publications had followed our lead but by that point we had built up a live following which had grown throughout the trial.
Our live updates were even featured in Georgia’s documentary and she has personally thanked Ellis for his coverage. Ellis captured video and pictures of Bear’s performances outside court, including arriving in a rented Rolls Royce and dressing in a pink suit and fur coat. We were there from start to finish and in addition to our live updates were publishing summaries, interviews post sentencing and explainers.Ellis also featured on the Testimony true crime podcast and spoke to other media about his coverage of the trial.
This case gathered more attention than many cases we cover but we cover court to highlight our justice system and give victims a voice. We do the same for other cases across Essex every week and are pleased this case was able to showcase our detailed live court blogs and how we treat breaking news.