GIRLS from Cirencester have hit out at the creators of a pornographic website after they realised their images had been taken from personal social media accounts and displayed in a degrading and distressing manner.

Anonib or Anonymous Image Bank shows pictures of girls as young as 15 from Cirencester and demeans them with comments such as “slut” and “bitch”.

Camila Hudson, 19, said she knew a few of the girls who had their images put on the website and all thought it was “just wrong”.

“There are tag names for all the girls in the pictures on the websites and people are even asking ex-boyfriends to send in pictures and videos now,” she said. “But some are just pictures of girls on holiday or showing a bit of cleavage. They’ve been exploited by this site.”

One of the more worrying comments on the site was an anonymous user requesting pictures of Deer Park and Kingshill schoolgirls. Staff at both the secondary schools in town said they had not been aware of the website until now.

“We regularly give reminders to our pupils regarding internet safety and we have also held a parents’forum on e-safety,” said Kingshill headteacher Christine Oates.

“However we were unaware of this site. It has not been reported to us by any of our current pupils or parents.”

Deer Park headteacher Chiquita Henson said pupils at the school were made aware of the risks they take in publishing images of themselves and each other in social media through the school’s e-safety regime.

“Staying safe online is incorporated into our assembly programme and various schemes of learning and these are routinely updated to ensure the guidance we provide is up to date and includes current trends such as Snapchat and similar.

“When we become aware of situations involving our pupils, individual cases are referred to the appropriate authorities and our pastoral team provide specialist care, guidance and support,” she added.

Gloucestershire Police have agreed that websites such as Anonib can often bring about bullying and a high level of distress to others.

"This case is also a reminder of how information posted on social media can fall into the wrong hands and be shared without the knowledge of the person who originally posted it," said a police spokesman.

"We would urge everyone just to be aware of their security settings when posting on social media and to be wary of who they share information or photos with."

Victim of the site 19-year-old Rosy Webb lashed out at the creator of the website by posting a public message on the forum, calling the users “vile specimen”.

"I feel sickened by this and would like to see the person who uploaded the photo of me get taught a lesson," she said. “To get the photos removed you have to give photo proof that the picture is of yourself.

“It’s made me doubt my friendship group as it is someone who knows me on Facebook who uploaded the picture," she continued. “They had no right or permission to use and share my photo without prior consent.”

The advice to all users of social networking sites is to restrict access to "friends" only to avoid abuse and cut down on cyber bullying.

AS THE Standard went to press, Anonib replied to our message. Below is the email they returned with:

"1. Anybody can post if follow the rules whats on the website. There is stuff whats not allowed and we fight and delete it on daily basic, any moderator or admin not post any image or something, just host that type site like any other: imgur, 4 chan or something.

We delete on daily basic illegal images if found, personal details and others. Btw there is tool what we create for report that to help us.

2. We report and help law offices if need some help about illegal stuff whats posted.

Thanks for your time, and sorry for english."