Court Convicts 14-Year-Old Brit Of Revenge Porn For Selling Images Of Ex-Girlfriend For £10
British Police confiscated in 2013 the laptop and smartphone a 14-year-old male Briton who used these gadgets for revenge porn. The teen was convicted by the Plymouth Youth Court of breaching UK’s revenge porn law, making him the youngest convict for that crime.
The teen, now 16, sold for £10 to another young man like him the nude photos of his former girlfriend, also a teen, after they split. He sent the sold images via Facebook, reports Telegraph.
The 170 nude images were sent to him by his girlfriend when they were still in a relationship. He was planning to sell these images when police raided his home and seized his gadgets after the ex-girlfriend found a message on Facebook that her photos were sold by the boy, prompting her to complain to police.
“When the relationship ended she asked that [he] destroy the photographs. It turned out the photos were then passed on to [the defendant’s friend] for a small sum of money,” Telegraph quotes Prosecutor Andrea Parsons.
The ex-boyfriend was charged with two counts of distributing photographs of a child, one count of possessing 24 images of a child with the aim of distributing it to another person and three counts of creating indecent photographs of a child.
His 15-year-old friend, now 17, who was the buyer of the photos, faced two counts of possession of indecent photos of a child.
The two were given 12-month referral orders and fined £100 as costs and victim surcharge.
The case is a good argument for better sex education, said child safety groups. The victim thought it wasn’t wrong for her to send intimate images of herself to her boyfriend.
An Internet safety expert explained the popularity of sexting to the youth considering it as small talk rather than a crime. In an information campaign, the Nottinghamshire Police wrote to schools in 2014 to warn students that those who shared intimate photos of themselves via text are equally liable in court and could end up being placed on the sex offenders’ registry.
Will Gardner from the charity Childnet International said, “Sex education in the digital age needs to teach young people the laws surrounding sex and the Internet, and how consent, respect and trust are essential online and offline.”
The Criminal Justice and Courts Bill before the British Parliament proposes two years jail term for people who post revenge porn images, reports Daily Mail.
To contact the writer, email: v.hernandez@ibtimes.com.au
