A security worker who posted an explicit naked photograph of his ex-girlfriend on Facebook after their break up in a revenge porn attack has been spared jail.
Alan Howard, 42, from Davenport, Stockport, uploaded the picture of his former partner to Facebook as well as sending her a version of the image.
He was spared jail but given a community punishment order after admitting publishing a private sexual photograph without the consent of the person who appeared in it.
This has only been a criminal offence since the new revenge porn laws were introduced in April.
So far, around a dozen men have been convicted under the legislation in England.
‘It is commonly known as revenge porn,’ Lucy Bridge, prosecuting, told Stockport Magistrates’ Court. ‘It was a naked picture.’
Howard, who defended himself, told the court he had posted the ‘headless’ picture in a private chatroom and claimed it was not of his former partner, but was done to ‘wind her up’.
At a previous hearing he had also been found guilty of violently assaulting and harassing the woman.
It was said on one occasion he grabbed her head and hit her, while on another occasion he had shouted at her from his van as he drove past slowly, despite having been warned by police to stay away.
In a victim impact statement read out to the court, the woman said: ‘I feel absolutely drained with the whole situation, I am scared when I go out.
‘I have suffered years of abuse. I am on pins all the time.
‘I can’t explain how I feel knowing there is a photograph out there. I feel sick, I just want it to stop.’