Sentences for explicit photo taken in Napier hotel will never be enough for victim

Jason Trembath has been sentenced to one year and seven months jail for creating and posting an intimate visual recording.

A woman went into shock after a police detective showed up at her door with an explicit photo of her ... a photo she had no recollection of.

The woman had her photo taken by Jason Trembath, 30, after a drunken night in a Napier hotel room in August 2017, a night that she can barely remember.

Trembath admitted two counts making and publishing an intimate visual recording of the woman.

Joshua Pauling, 30, was straddling the woman in the photo, smiling, as Judge Geoff Rea pointed out.

Pauling had denied being party to the intimate photograph, which Trembath shared on a Taradale cricket team's private Facebook messenger group.

Trembath also shared the photo via text message.

Both men denied raping the woman that night, and were found not guilty last month by a district court jury.

Trembath was today jailed for one year and seven months for creating and posting an intimate visual recording.

What the district court jury did not know - as is required by law, to allow a fair trial - is that Trembath had admitted indecently assaulting other women by approaching them and grabbing them when they were out exercising.

Those offences landed him three years' and nine months' jail. Added to the sentences for the photo, and Trembath got five years' and four months' jail.

Straddling the woman in the photo was Pauling who was sentenced to 150 hours' community work and nine months' supervision for being party to an intimate visual recording.

The woman was 26 at the time her photo was taken.

She told Hawke's Bay Today the men's sentences for the photo would never be enough.

"I think it's the best result given the circumstances, but it's not enough and it will never be enough, when comparing it to everything that I went through.

"I went into the court room today expecting nothing, I thought Joshua Pauling would walk away with a slap on the wrist, but to have that community service handed down and the way the judge handled the whole thing, it brought back a little bit of faith in the system."

The woman, who no longer lives in Hawke's Bay, had met Pauling via dating app Tinder in 2017, just days before the photo was taken in the hotel room.

Three months later a detective showed up at her work with the photo, a photo that sent her into shock.

"I just wanted to push it aside, but then the more I talked to police about it, I realised it wasn't right and I had to say something.

"It impacted my friendships and family relationships because I wanted to hide from them how much it affected me. It really messed me up, I was just distraught.

Although the trial is over and the sentencing is over, for me it will never be over. It might lessen over time, but it will never go away."

She said Pauling has never reached out to her, nor did he show remorse, something noted during sentencing by Judge Rea.

"You made the probation report all about you," Judge Rea told Pauling.

As for Trembath, the photograph victim said:
"I feel like the jury should have been informed of the other indecent assault charges.

"This trial may not have been the outcome that I would have liked to have seen, I have to focus on the positives because I will not let this drag me down any further."

Trembath will be considered for parole after serving one-third of his sentence.