Man threatened to post intimate videos of ex

Woman who lives ‘in fear’ granted court protection

A JUDGE has granted court protection to a woman whose ex-partner is threatening to post intimate videos and photos of her on Facebook.

The woman told Judge Patrick Durcan she is in fear for her safety because of the man.

She was granted a two-year safety order against the man at the family law court in Ennis, Co. Clare. In a statement to the court, the woman stated that the man is constantly sending her text messages and ringing her.

She said she blocked him on her phone but that he keeps getting a new phone number.

She stated that the man is blackmailing her ‘and has intimate photos and videos of me and is threatening to put them up on Facebook’.

The man wasn’t in court to contest the application for the safety order.

Last May, Cabinet approved measures to make ‘revenge porn’ a specific criminal offence. However, the chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC), Noeleen Blackwell, yesterday expressed disappointment that the proposed legislation didn’t become law before the General Election was called.

Ms Blackwell said the non-consensual action of posting intimate photos and videos online ‘is a growing issue and we would hear that anecdotally from the gardaí and family law lawyers’.

She added that the current laws in place ‘are totally inadequate to deal with this form of abuse’.

The DRCC was one of a number of bodies to make a submission to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice and Equality on the issue of online harassment and harmful communications last October.

Ms Blackwell said the work the committee has done on the issue should continue under the next government. She said the current sexual harassment laws require a pattern of behaviour, but ‘that doesn’t cover one lethal uploading online’ that can have devastating consequences for the person who didn’t give her or his consent.

A Bill on the ‘revenge porn’ issue put forward by the Labour Party in 2017 proposed a six-month prison term for offenders.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice stated that ‘the issue of harmful communications is one which Minister Charlie Flanagan is very concerned about’.

The spokesman said Minister Flanagan proposed a number of significant amendments to the harassment Bill, put forward by Labour leader Brendan Howlin, designed to strengthen the proposals.

These included introducing a distinct offence of stalking and providing for two offences to deal with non-consensual recording and distribution of intimate images, including so-called ‘revenge pornography’.

Penalties of up to seven years imprisonment and/or an unlimited fines would be provided for in the draft legislation.

The Department of Justice spokesman said: ‘The department has been engaging closely with the Office of the Parliamentary Council to draft amendments to the Bill, to ensure consistency in its provisions and that the law in this area is robust and effective.