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Discovering sexually explicit pictures of his previous girlfriend on her partner’s phone angered a woman so much that she posted them to several online sites.
The offending continued even after police had charged her for it, Gisborne District Court was told this week.
The 24-year-old, whose name is withheld to protect the identity of the complainant, had no previous convictions before pleading guilty to a representative charge of posting a harmful digital communication — an offence punishable by up to two years imprisonment or a $50,000 fine.
She appeared for sentence in a Young Adult list. However, Judge Turitea Bolstad adjourned the hearing until later this year, saying it was important the woman apologised to the victim and her family.
The court would direct a referral to the restorative justice process, “but only if you’re genuinely sorry”, the judge said.
“I could see it all stemmed from your relationship with your partner — things were up and down — and it was your way of lashing out in frustration. But I can also see it from your victim’s perspective because what you did was not nice.”
She noted that when the woman was sentenced and had completed that sentence, the matter for her would be “done and dusted”. However, the victim and her family had suffered and things wouldn’t end as easily for them “because people will remember”.
“So, if you want an opportunity and you have to be genuinely sorry, I’ll give you an opportunity to say sorry to her and her family because they’ve suffered. Maybe you should’ve directed your energy at your partner and not her.”
According to an agreed summary of facts, the complainant sent sexually explicit pictures and videos of herself to the woman’s boyfriend during their past relationship. She didn’t intend for anyone else to view them.
His new partner, with whom he has a child, found the pictures earlier this year and used another person’s phone to rephotograph them.
She used her mother’s Facebook account to contact the complainant via Messenger.
She called the complainant “crusty” for sending nudes and videos of herself, said she was exposing her on Facebook, and would also send the material to the woman’s mother, “Hahaha”.
“You can’t say it’s not you ‘cos I can see your tattoos and your face, hahaha.”
If the complainant blocked her Facebook account, she’d simply contact her again through someone else’s, “hahahaha”, the woman said.
The complainant ignored the messages and the following day her mother received four of the sexually explicit photographs.
The woman asked the complainant’s mother if she could please tell her daughter to stop sending her partner inappropriate pictures and videos otherwise she would expose her.
The complainant’s mother told her daughter what she’d received and again the complainant tried to ignore it.
However, later that day the complainant started to get messages from strangers via Facebook advising her that four sexually explicit photographs had been put online, along with her full name and address.
Questioned later by police, the woman said: “This is what you get when you send pics to someone’s man and she couldn’t have expected them to be a secret”.
In court the woman told Judge Bolstad that she and her child were no longer living with the man involved.