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Jail time 'necessary' for B.C. man who uploaded dozens of photos and videos of ex to Pornhub: judge
A B.C. judge ruled “imprisonment is necessary” for a man who took revenge on an ex-girlfriend who rejected him by posting dozens of images and videos of her to Pornhub without her knowledge or permission, content that piled up almost 14,000 views.
The 42-year-old man, who pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly publishing intimate images of a person without consent, was sentenced to five months behind bars, according to a recently published provincial court decision.
“In these circumstances, a sentence must send a message of denunciation and deterrence,” Fraser region Judge Robert McQuillan wrote.
The decision, bound by a publication ban to protect the victim, identifies the man as B.W. and his victim as E.H.
Between April 2020 and July 2022, the two were in an “on and off” relationship that the judge described as “volatile, and centred around their shared misuse of crystal meth and alcohol.”
During that time, they recorded videos of themselves having sex, only some of which were made with the complainant’s consent. B.W. had asked if he could post some online, but E.H. said no.
After their final breakup, B.W. continued to contact E.H., prompting her to tell him “she did not wish to have any contact” and repeatedly blocking his number.
On March 4, 2023, B.W. sent her a link to a Canadian-based pornography platform Pornhub profile page featuring E.H.’s personal nickname and image. In four text messages the following day, he admitted to posting the content and said “that he still loved her” and felt “discarded.”
After visiting the page and finding images and videos of herself, E.W. immediately contacted the police.
On the profile page, police found 18 videos, which were viewed more than 10,000 times, and 80 photos, which had been accessed more than 3,700 times. In all of them, “her face was clearly identifiable and included depictions of her engaging in sexual intercourse,” the judge wrote. Police noted it was not enough to generate income for B.W., but the account included his banking information, meaning he stood to be compensated if engagement increased.
The account was created on Aug. 9, 2022, not long after their relationship ended for good, with most of the uploads occurring between September and November that year. One document was added to the site the day B.W. made his initial contact with E.H in 2023 and more photos and videos were added two days later. The content was still available on Pornhub until police contacted site administrators in November 2023.
The court learned that B.W. was using crystal meth at the time he committed the offences, but has since taken meaningful steps to address his substance abuse.
In weighing the circumstances, McQuillan said B.W.’s early guilty plea and his apparently “sincere and heartfelt” expression of “regret, embarrassment and shame” during sentencing submissions were mitigating factors.
But the judge found far more aggravating ones, “in particular, the identifiability of the victim, the very public nature and availability of the images over a very long period of time, and the pre-meditated (sic) and revenge motivated nature of the acts place this offence in a more egregious category than some others.”
The Crown was seeking six to eight months and two years of probation, while defence counsel asked for a conditional sentence. McQuillan, noting a potential for a five-year max sentence, said “a sentence served in the community would not be consistent with the purpose and principles of sentencing.”
After incarceration, B.W. will serve 18 months on probation during which he is prohibited from any contact with E.H. and must remove any existing online content within 24 hours of release.
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