Man jailed for uploading video of himself having sex with ex-girlfriend to porn site
A man using his smartphone at night. (Photo: iStock)
SINGAPORE: A man agreed to delete all the sexual videos he had taken of himself and his ex-girlfriend when they broke up, but later discovered some files that he had missed out.
Instead of deleting them, he uploaded one clip of them having sexual intercourse to a pornography website.
He was found out after his ex-girlfriend came across the video, and matched the username of the person who uploaded it to the moniker he used on social media.
The 26-year-old man was jailed for 11 weeks on Thursday (Nov 18). He pleaded guilty to a charge each of intentionally distributing an intimate recording and possessing obscene films, with a third charge taken into consideration.
He cannot be named due to a gag order preventing the publication of any information that could identify the victim.
The court heard that the offender was in a relationship with the victim, now 25, between 2013 and 2016.
During their relationship, the man recorded videos of himself engaging in intimate sexual acts with the victim, with her consent.
After they ended their relationship, the victim asked him to delete all such videos he had of her or them, and he told her he had done so.
Sometime around February 2020, the offender found his old laptop, switched it on and found videos of himself having sex with the victim.
On Mar 9, 2020, he uploaded one such video to a pornographic website using a moniker. The victim was fully naked in the video, and her face was visible in some parts of the clip.
The video has been viewed more than 3,000 times, the prosecutor said.
On Apr 1, 2020, the victim was surfing the Internet when she discovered that one of her intimate videos had been uploaded to a website. She noticed that the user who uploaded the video used the same username that her ex-boyfriend had for most of his social media accounts.
She lodged an electronic police report that same morning.
The police arrested her ex-boyfriend on Apr 7, 2020, and seized his laptop, handphone and portable hard drive for investigations.
A total of 702 videos were extracted from the devices, of which 692 were found to be obscene.
Some of the videos had been recorded by the offender, while others were downloaded from the Internet or sent to him.
The prosecutor asked for 13 to 18 weeks' jail. But defence lawyer Raphael Louis said his client was remorseful and regrets his acts.
He said he did not lie to the victim or had any malice against her.
"At that point he thought all the videos were deleted. It was only later that he realised some were not deleted," said the lawyer.
"Then, without any malice or anything personal against the victim, he uploaded the video. There was nothing personal against the victim."
He said his client has made "really concrete efforts to change", volunteering and making restitution to the victim. He also apologised to the victim and understands that what he did was wrong, said Mr Louis.
For intentionally distributing an intimate recording without a person's consent and having reason to believe it would likely cause her humiliation, the man could have been jailed up to five years, fined, caned, or given any combination of these penalties.
