Explicit pics of ex lover sent to dad

A Flaxmere man who mass emailed intimate photos of his former girlfriend to her friends and family has been slammed by a prosecutor for his "bitter and twisted" offending.
The 21-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared in Hastings District Court yesterday to fight charges of accessing a computer system without authorisation and interfering with a computer system.
Due to the private nature of the hearing Judge Geoff Rea cleared the court's public gallery while the man's former girlfriend gave evidence and spoke of her "shame and humiliation" after seven explicit photos of her were forwarded to 100 recipients, including her father.
The court heard she had taken the intimate photos of herself using the web-camera on her boyfriend's laptop computer. She claimed to have ended the six-year relationship in mid-July this year, and had never informed her boyfriend of the photographs stored on his computer.
Angry at how she had ended the relationship, the boyfriend sent her several texts, threatening to forward the photos if she didn't communicate with him: "Can we be adults and talk - or children and send them [photographs] to peeps [people] who know you ... now I'm going to shame and humiliate you like you have done to me".
The prosecution claimed the man accessed her hotmail email account to send the photos on July 31, two weeks after their separation. They also claimed he changed her online profile to "slur" her name.
The woman, who now lives in another region, said she "felt ashamed, upset, shocked and embarrassed".
During the defence's cross examination, she admitted there was a male third party in the relationship, yet denied he had "an axe to grind" or any reason to send the emails.
Hastings detective Vanessa Jones gave evidence and said the boyfriend confessed to sending the images when issued with a search warrant at his Flaxmere home.
He later denied this, and said he admitted sending the threatening texts, but not images.
He argued he was merely a recipient of the images, and not the sender. When earlier asked to bring his laptop to the police station for his interview, he later rang police and said it had been stolen from his car the night before.
Police prosecutor Tanya Peterson said his actions were that of a "boyfriend who's bitter and twisted". "You followed up on these texts ... you would know how to hurt her wouldn't you?"
Judge Rea convicted the man and said his offending was based on "spite".
"There is no doubt at all he had both the knowledge and ability to access all parts of her accounts," Judge Rea said. "He was single-minded in the way he went about using the photos to inflict the most humiliation and shame he could cause to her.
"There was one person who had an axe to grind and you proved it through the entirety of your evidence."
At the decision a small scuffle broke out in the court's public gallery after profanities were exchanged between the two families.
Judge Rea warned he was not ruling out a term of imprisonment for the man at February's sentencing.