A young man has posted a collage of intimate pictures of his teenage girlfriend on social media to his 1,100 followers after the split, a court has heard.
The 20-year-old Dublin man, who cannot be named to protect his victim’s identity, committed the offense in 2021, just months after it became a criminal offense to post intimate images of someone online without their consent, said the defense attorney at the Dublin Criminal Court, reports RTE.
The man pleaded guilty to nationally distributing intimate images of his ex-girlfriend without her consent on September 21, 2021. He has no criminal record.
The national braodcaster says the man was 19 years old at the time of the crime while his victim was 18 years old. Some of the pictures he shared of her were taken when she was 17, Garda Mark Naul told the court.
As the court learned, on the day in question the man sent his ex-girlfriend’s girlfriend a collage of four intimate pictures that she had taken during their relationship. The couple dated for about a year before splitting.
The man then posted the same collage of images on Snapchat, where he has 1,100 followers, the court heard.
Gardaí were alerted and the man was arrested in October 2021. He made full recordings of gardaí.
The woman in the case did not want to appear in court for the sentencing. A victim impact statement was made but not read.
According to RTE, James McCullough BL defended his client as “immature” and “naive”. He has ADHD and was in the care of Children’s and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) until he was 18, the court heard.
After his discharge from that service, he stopped taking his prescribed medication. He is someone who “acts without thinking of the consequences”, the court heard, reports RTE.
Defense attorneys said that when the man committed the crime, the laws making it a crime only came into effect several months earlier.
Judge Dara Hayes noted that regardless of when the legislation went into effect, “this is behaviour that shouldn’t take place”, reports RTE.
The judge ordered a parole board report and adjourned the case to close on March 27 next year.
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