Banker who was spurned by colleague ‘posted fake porn pictures of her online’
A CITY banker posted faked X-rated pictures of a junior colleague online after she spurned his advances, a court heard.
Davide Buccheri, 25, faces ruin if the ‘planned and sophisticated’ campaign of harassment is proven.
The Italian, a fund manager assistant at M&G Investments, is suspected of taking images from a female intern’s social media accounts.
He allegedly edited and uploaded them to adult websites using images of women of similar appearance and an account called ‘flying gerbil’.
He is then accused of tipping off bosses of their existence, via a whistleblowing procedure, in an attempt to discredit her. But a court heard colleagues became suspicious and called the police who investigated the true source of the pictures. The campaign is said to have taken place over eight months at the City offices of the company, which manages assets of £280bn.
City of London magistrates’ court heard Buccheri, from Bologna, northern Italy, will go on trial before Christmas.
Prosecutor Sonya Foxsmith said his alleged victim was an intern with the company and Mr Buccheri ‘had made romantic advances toward her, which were rejected’.
‘And following that, she did make a complaint to the Human Resources department in relation to that conduct,’ she added.
‘There is then a gap between her employment with the company, and she leaves and returns, when she is offered the post-graduate position in 2017. The Crown’s case is that between 15th of April 2017 and the 21st of April 2017, Mr Buccheri uploaded a number of images of [her], and pornographic images of other females of similar build, which he had obtained from the internet.
‘The point of this is that they were edited and cropped by Mr Buccheri to make them look like [his alleged victim].
‘Those images have now since been placed into galleries on the website where pornographic images are shown alongside genuine images of [her].
‘These images, or these galleries, were then revealed to the company’s HR department by Mr Buccheri by the whistleblowing procedure available. The Crown say Mr Buccheri’s actions and conduct all amounted to harassment. Clearly it’s a very planned and sophisticated approach that caused her distress.’
Once his alleged victim was made aware, police seized computer equipment from Buccheri, including a laptop, the court was told.
Mrs Foxsmith added: ‘The Crown’s case will rest on an account which is linked to Mr Buccheri’s Sky account in his name, his date of birth, his address. The account name is flying gerbil.’
Wearing a black suit and clutching a rucksack, the Italian spoke only to confirm his name and deny the offence.
He is accused of one charge of harassment without violence between September 9 last year and May 29.
Magistrates set a trial date for December 21 at the same court, which is expected to last a day. Buccheri was released on bail.
Magistrate Julie Baldwin told him he must not contact his alleged victim or any other employee of the company.
Buccheri completed an MSc in finance at the London School of Economics in 2015, having studied at the University of Hong Kong and Milan’s Bocconi University.
‘Images obtained from the internet’