TikTok prankster Mizzy sentenced to young offender institution after posting videos without consent

TikTok prankster Mizzy has been sentenced to 18 weeks’ detention in a young offenders' institution. The star, real name Bacari-Bronze O’Garro, was found guilty of two counts of breaching a court order prohibiting him from sharing videos of people without their consent at his trial last month.

In one of the offending videos, passersby were visible in the background as Mizzy said to the camera: “The UK law is a joke.”

At the hearing in Stratford Magistrates Court on Tuesday (November 21), Judge Matthew Bone handed down a sentence of 18 weeks' detention in a young offender institution to the individual. He told him “put bluntly your pranks are not funny”.

O’Garro, dressed in a black jacket and black trousers, showed no reaction as the sentence was read out. Following his trial last month, the father-of-one received a social media ban for deliberately violating a court order that banned him from sharing videos of individuals without their consent. This breach occurred shortly after the court order was issued.

While he was acquitted of two additional charges of the same offence, Judge Bone, during sentencing, stressed that O’Garro's actions were driven by a desire to receive monetary and material benefits, such as designer clothes from sponsors. The judge further noted that the defendant's pursuit of fame resulted in significant harm and distress to innocent members of the public.

The court heard that O’Garro began sharing non-consensual videos on the same day the criminal behaviour order was issued. One such video, posted on his Twitter account, featured him at Westfield shopping centre, Stratford, where he mocked the British judicial system after appearing on Piers Morgan’s TalkTV show.

Other videos on O’Garro’s Snapchat, also in violation, depicted him grabbing a schoolboy by his uniform and engaging in a physical altercation with a man with dwarfism. O’Garro claimed these were hoax videos made with prior consent, but the judge dismissed this defence.

O’Garro’s claim that one of his friends, who had access to his login details, posted the Twitter videos without his consent, was dismissed by Judge Matthew Bone as “inconceivable”. In mitigation, O’Garro’s lawyer Paul Lennon said he was a “young man” and had shown a “lack of maturity.”

The social media star is completing a creative media production course at a sixth form college, and started a job as a waiter in a restaurant earlier this week, Mr Lennon said. “He is very academic and is predicted to achieve a distinction. He is making attempts to better himself.”