Sisters Describe 'Complete Violation' After Being Filmed Up Their Dresses on Manchester Night Out

Two sisters have spoken out about the "complete violation" they felt after being secretly filmed up their dresses while enjoying a night out in Manchester, saying the men allegedly responsible "chose the wrong girls" to target.

Georgia Scholes, 25, and her sister Alex, 22, had just left a restaurant in the Spinningfields area of the city centre when they noticed two men following them unusually closely as they climbed a set of stairs. According to the sisters, the men were holding a phone in a manner that immediately struck them as suspicious.

Georgia, an actress who appears in the ITV crime drama The Bay, said her instincts told her something was not right when she spotted one of the men gripping his phone at an awkward angle. She soon realised he was recording her without her knowledge or consent.

The moment of realisation hit her hard. "My heart just sank. It was a complete violation," Georgia recalled, describing the shock of discovering that someone had captured footage beneath her dress and was walking away with it.

Greater Manchester Police confirmed that two men, one in his 20s and the other in his 30s, were arrested on suspicion of voyeurism following the alleged incident on Deansgate on 19 September. The force said both men had since been released on bail while further enquiries continue.

Georgia described confronting the men directly, asking them to delete the recording. She said she then broke down in tears as the full weight of what had happened sank in, compounded by the fact that the footage was no longer in her control. "I don't know what he's going to do with that footage," she said, expressing a fear that many victims of such offences share — that intimate images may be shared, stored, or used without any ability to intervene.

She also recounted how one of the men shouted at her while the other remained strangely close by, and how one of them eventually began to run off. Throughout the ordeal, Georgia said she appealed to people nearby for help but felt let down when nobody appeared to react.

Alex, her younger sister, repeatedly demanded that one of the men delete the video. When he started to flee, she took off her heels and chased after him, determined not to let him simply walk away from what he had allegedly done. It was only then that a bouncer intervened and stopped the remaining man, an action that ultimately led to both suspects being arrested.

Georgia believes that without the bouncer's intervention, the men might never have faced any consequences. She said she would have been left to live with the knowledge that the incident had gone unanswered, a prospect she described as deeply distressing.

Reflecting on the emotional impact, Georgia explained how a night that had begun with excitement and confidence — hair done, makeup done, feeling good about herself — was entirely overshadowed. By the following morning, she said she was overcome with sadness, feeling as though she had spent the whole evening having to justify herself.

She also raised concerns about how she was treated during the reporting process. Georgia said the first question a female police officer asked her was whether she was certain the man had been recording her, a query she felt planted a seed of doubt rather than offering reassurance.

Beyond her own case, Georgia made a broader point about the advice routinely given to women. She argued that telling women to be hyper-vigilant on nights out, to watch their surroundings and monitor their drinks, is not a genuine solution. In her view, such guidance amounts to little more than a plaster over a far larger societal problem.

Alex echoed her sister's anger, stating that the men had picked the wrong pair to target. She said the sisters refused to be belittled and were determined to defend themselves, even as they faced a barrage of abuse during the confrontation. She stressed that no one should be able to violate her, her sister, or anybody else in that manner and assume they can escape accountability.

Describing the aftermath, Alex said the experience leaves victims feeling violated and disrespected in a way that taints every positive emotion experienced beforehand. She argued that voyeurism offences are too often minimalised and normalised, creating an expectation that victims should simply accept what has happened to them.

Instead, Alex insisted, the norm should be to call out perversion and harassment whenever it occurs. The sisters' decision to speak publicly highlights a growing conversation about the prevalence of upskirting and covert filming, and the gaps that remain in how such crimes are reported, investigated and understood by the wider public.