This week saw the first conviction in East Lancashire for “revenge porn”.
Andrew Donnelly shared a video of himself performing a sex act on a woman and also sent a video of them having sex to one of her friends. He was prosecuted under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 which in April of this year created a new criminal offence of revenge pornography. This makes it a criminal offence to disclose private sexual photographs and films without the consent of an individual who appears in them with the intent to cause that individual distress.
In Andrew Donnelly’s case sharing these videos resulted in a suspended prison sentence for 18 weeks and considerable criticism from all sides. Hyndburn MP, Graham Jones, describes this as a despicable crime referring to the embarrassment and humiliation suffered by the victim.
Donnelly chose to publish the video on Facebook and the distress caused to his victim must be enormous. The prosecutor in the case, Neil White, said that his actions had been designed to cause maximum embarrassment.
From my perspective as an abuse lawyer revenge porn is a fascinating area. There have been recent developments in this area of law which mean that the victims of revenge porn now have strong damages claims against the person who shares the images without their consent. Not only is Mr Donnelly facing a suspended prison sentence but he would also, in all likelihood, face a substantial damages claim should his victim choose to pursue him through the Civil Courts. In these cases the victim does not necessarily need to show that they have suffered any psychiatric injury as a result of the images being shared and it is enough to merely show distress. One would imagine that it is not difficult to show that the sharing of these sort of images would cause significant distress to a victim.
We are expecting as a department many more claimants to come forward who have suffered at the hands of their ex partners, who will not only now face criminal sanction but may also find that sharing private images will result in them having to pay substantial damages awards to their victims.
If you have been the victim of revenge pornography or would like to discuss anything arising from this further please do not hesitate to contact one of our specialist revenge pornography solicitors.