A man has been ordered to pay almost £100,000 in damages after covertly recording naked images of his then girlfriend, and uploading them to an internet pornography site alongside a photograph of her face.

This behaviour is often termed “revenge porn”. In this case the High Court preferred the claimant’s description as “image-based abuse”, and is thought to be the first case of its type to come before the civil courts in England and Wales. The award for pain and suffering alone was £60,000 which sets a benchmark for these types of claims in the future.

The claimant began a romantic relationship with Stuart Gaunt, the defendant, in March 2016, and they moved in together in May of the same year. In October 2017, she found a microscopic camera hidden in the bathroom at home, and went on to find out that he had had covertly filmed her in various ways, including showering and sleeping topless.

It was then discovered that the images had been uploaded onto a pornographic website, alongside a photograph of her face so she could be recognised. Payment platform sites were also subsequently located, which inferred that the defendant had made money from uploading the images.

It has been illegal in England since April 2015 to post private sexual images online without consent. The Defendant was convicted of voyeurism and other sexual offences in September 2020, receiving a two-year suspended sentence and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register for ten years.

The Claimant instructed specialists at Farleys Solicitors in Manchester in order to bring a civil claim against her former partner for psychological injuries, infringement of privacy and misuse of private information. The case was heard by The Hon Mrs Justice Thornton OBE in the High Court of Justice in London on 17 January 2023. Her reserved judgment was handed down on 27 February 2023, with the Court awarding general damages of £60,000 and special damages of £37,041.61 for consequential financial losses. This sum will increase when costs are added.

The claimant said:

This was such an awful betrayal of someone that was pretending to love and care for me. Someone that I had trusted, had taken my most intimate moments and gleefully added this to sick websites and relished at his perverted enjoyment of sharing this with thousands of strangers without my knowledge.

Jonathan Bridge, Partner at Farleys Solicitors said:

“This has obviously been a traumatic experience for our client, who has been incredibly resilient and has displayed a lot of courage in coming forward. We hope that the settlement we have achieved goes some way to bringing a measure of closure to this ordeal”.

The full judgement can be accessed at: FGX v Stuart Gaunt – Find case law (nationalarchives.gov.uk)

The Claimant’s legal team includes Jonathan Bridge, Partner at Farleys Solicitors and Justin Levinson, Counsel of One Crown Office Row.