Soldier, 22 stole nude images to blackmail colleague
A MARRIED soldier who hacked into a female colleague’s social media account and blackmailed her with naked photographs was jailed for three years yesterday.
Private Michael Kewley threatened to send the images to the woman’s friends and family unless she sent him more.
He also sold the naked photos online, and in one month made at least £200 doing so.
Over the course of a year he bombarded the female private with hundreds of messages from various accounts, in a systematic campaign to ‘distress and humiliate’ her.
Kewley, 22, who left the Army earlier this year, admitted blackmail and disclosing sexual photographs in a military court.
The court had heard how the woman soldier was initially contacted on Facebook Messenger by a ‘Joshscott1004’ who said he had explicit photos of her and would share them with her friends and family unless she
‘Maximise distress and humiliation’
sent him more. A few months later, an account called ‘Joshgibbbo’ messaged her, again requesting more explicit photos.
She then began to receive daily messages from the fake accounts. Prosecutor Lindsay Zalkin told Burford Military Court in Wiltshire: ‘The messages got increasingly more threatening.
‘He said he would f*** her life up, that she would be punished, and that her and her parents’ family information would be stolen.
‘[He] created several accounts and hacked into Snapchat accounts and removed photographs that he has then used as part of the blackmail. His conduct was intended to maximise distress and humiliation.’
A friend of the female soldier told her ‘Joshgibbo’ had also tried to blackmail her, using naked images of the victim with a warning she would also be hacked of she didn’t send him images of herself.
Eventually, in a desperate attempt to get the messages to stop, the victim sent a naked photo of herself and nine in her underwear.
She soon became aware that the pictures had been sent to ten people via her Instagram account, which had also been hacked.
When an ex-partner of the victim contacted her saying he had been offered the pictures online, with the offer ‘50 per cent off if you buy before midnight’, she told the police and military police.
Investigations into where the woman’s accounts were being accessed from led officers to Kewley’s house. His phone had 361 images and videos of the victim and a bank statement from December 2018 showed receipt of a £200 payment online for pictures.
Kewley, formerly of 4 Regiment Royal Logistics Corps based in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, knew the victim through their time together in training.
The ex-soldier, who had pleaded guilty to two counts of blackmail and a third count of disclosing sexual photographs, remained emotionless as he was given three years and four months in prison.
Sentencing him, Assistant Judge Advocate General Alistair McGrigor said: ‘Your behaviour was deliberate, consistent, systematic and controlling.’