Porn blackmail saga

Wife sues husband over videos

AWOMAN in the process of divorcing her husband took him to court to prevent him from distributing sexually explicit content they had made. The woman brought an urgent application in the Western Cape High Court on Friday, after the husband allegedly threatened to share sexual content made of himself and his wife online to blackmail her into to accepting his demands in their divorce settlement.

A motion of notice was made to the court to halt the dissemination of illicit material, asking that the material be destroyed to restore the applicant’s right to privacy and dignity.

“This application reminds us of the struggle that women face in this country. Women marched to Parliament protesting for rights they had been denied for decades.

“Today this application is in the same vein. We ask you to protect my client’s rights to privacy, her dignity and integrity because he (her husband) treated her in the most vile and despicable manner,” said advocate Brian Kenneth Pincus.

Pincus said that his client’s husband had sent her clips of their explicit videos that he had edited to include James Bond music, and had also sent her screenshots of her WhatsApp messages, which it was assumed he had copied.

The husband, who represented himself in court, said some claims were true and others weren’t. He said he had noted his wife’s request to destroy the material, which he said he did immediately, but added that he had not copied her WhatsApp messages.

He said he didn’t understand the urgency of the matter when their divorce had dragged on for five months, and asked that the case be postponed until he could gain legal representation.

“I haven’t shown it (video footage) to anyone, sorry it hurt anyone by keeping it. If it gets shared, it wouldn’t have been by me,” said the husband.

When asked by judge Bruce Langa if he had threatened to share the explicit videos, he said yes.

Langa said that matter was urgent and ordered that all digital devices in the husband’s custody be handed to the sheriff of the court within 48 hours, for a forensic IT expert to remove all pornographic and WhatsApp content linked to his wife.

The husband was also directed to pay the costs of the court application.