Man’s porn pic threat over debt

A DUNDEE man threatened to shame a woman through revenge porn because she owed him money.

Kieran Coyle, 30, of Laird Street, admitted threatening the woman with revenge porn at Dundee Sheriff Court.

The court heard that Coyle met the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, through a dating app and subsequently communicated with her over social media.

They exchanged “explicit” pictures with each other but the relationship went sour, after the woman failed to repay money Coyle had loaned to her, and he threatened to post an image of the woman on social media.

Sheriff George Way deferred sentencing until September 14 in order for criminal justice social work reports to be carried out.

He said: “There is a great deal of publicity concerning this type of behaviour and it is important that examples of it are punished.”

Solicitor Jim Laverty, representing Coyle, told the court that his client was “very embarrassed with himself”.

Mr Laverty said: “They met through a dating app and communicated through social media.

“They then found difficulties because Mr Coyle, who was in full-time employment at the time, offered to lend her money.

“The money was then not repaid and he intimated that he would share the image because of this.

“It was a threat but it was probably a threat that he would have never carried out.

“He accepts that this would have caused stress to the young lady. “He is very embarrassed with himself. “The image we are dealing with was not of a particularly indecent nature but, nonetheless, it was an image that may have caused the young lady distress.

“He asked me to apologise on his behalf for the stress he caused.”

Coyle admitted trying to cause the woman fear, alarm or distress by threatening to disclose the photograph of her, in an intimate situation, which had not been disclosed to the public previously, over social media.

It comes after the Scottish Government launched a campaign highlighting the dangers of so-called “revenge porn”.

The hard-hitting posters show a mobile phone with nude pictures covered in crime scene tape.

Kieran Coyle