CPS pledges crackdown on ‘revenge porn’

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) says it is committed to tackling “revenge porn” and has urged victims of the crime to come forward.

The call came following the first conviction in the West Midlands under the new revenge pornography offence created in April this year.

The 25-year-old man admitted sending the victim a Facebook message from a false account using a private sexual photograph of the victim as his profile picture, without her consent. At Kidderminster Magistrates’ Court on 13 August, he was sentenced to a 12-month community order, fined and ordered to pay costs.

Lionel Idan, deputy chief crown prosecutor from West Midlands CPS said: “This deliberate and callous act was intended to cause the victim maximum distress, humiliation and embarrassment.

“Such criminal actions will not be tolerated by the CPS and the police and we will do everything in our power to obtain justice for victims of this crime by robustly prosecuting all those who engage in such malicious activity.

“I urge anyone who has been a victim of such a crime to report it to the police and to help us bring such offenders to justice.”

In April, the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 created the new criminal offence of revenge pornography, involving the disclosure of private sexual photographs and films without the consent of an individual who appears in them and with the intent to cause that person distress.

Someone convicted of the offence could face up to two years in prison and receive a fine.