Man gets nine months in jail for posting revenge porn of ex on Twitter

A man from Manitoba has been sentenced to nine months in jail after posting revenge porn of his ex-girlfriend on Twitter.

Judge Robert Heinrichs denied the man’s plea to be under house arrest instead of serving time in jail.

“[His] swift and perverse course of action in wanting to inflict harm on his ex-girlfriend requires a clear message of denunciation, one that [house arrest] can not satisfy,” the judge stated in his decision. “A sentence of nine months in custody on the non-consensual distribution of intimate images will be imposed.”

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The May 16 provincial court decision was posted online on Monday.

The perpetrator, who’s called SA in the court documents, pleaded guilty to knowingly publishing intimate images of his ex-girlfriend without her consent.

In May 2020, SA and his ex—who’s identified as KD in the decision—had broken up for a period of time, during which KD had sexual relations with another man.

Last March, SA found out about the relationship and had an argument with KD about it over the phone. He then proceeded to text her incessantly.

She received hundreds of messages which included threats of violence against the person she had been “cheating with,” that she could call the cops and he wouldn’t care, and that he was going to post nude photos of her on “everything.”

His last threat he made good on was posting approximately 15 nude photos of KD on his personal Twitter account, which had over 400 followers. He also tweeted the photos directly at his ex-girlfriend.

“His tweet was sent to hundreds of people he knew and had ready access via his Twitter account – people who likely knew of the relationship between him and the victim,” the judge said.

Within an hour, KD had reported this to the police, and just after midnight the following day, police arrested the man.

Thankfully, laws have evolved with technology to combat these crimes. Revenge porn, also known as non-consensual pornography, “describes the act of receiving an intimate image or video from someone and then distributing it without their consent,” according to Alberta criminal defence lawyers. It has been an indictable offence for less than 10 years now.

Judge Heinrichs referenced the section in the Criminal Code, which is a relatively new law, in the court document.

“Parliament has enacted this section of the Code to deal with individuals in society who take advantage of the recent advances in technology to get back at or harm individuals by cyberbullying,” the decision reads.

It adds that the federal government enacted this law after the suicides of Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd. Both had been subjected to the non-consensual distribution of intimate images and cyberbullied for it.

Provincial governments are also taking action. Last May, the BC government announced that it was evaluating the possibility of legislation that would protect victims of revenge porn.