Central Coast’s rise of scorned ex-lovers sharing intimate images to humiliate: Four cases of 2020
Their disgraceful acts have been aired in our local courts. Here are the most shocking cases of people sharing nude and sexual images of others without their knowledge. The offence is often colloquially called “revenge porn”, something online safety experts strongly discourage as the cases rise.
Central Coast
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Sending or sharing naked or sexually explicit images is becoming more prevalent across the Central Coast.
Both Gosford and Wyong local courts are increasingly seeing cases involving people sharing private material against someone’s wishes via mobile phones or internet sites such as Snapchat or Facebook.
Four shocking cases in the last six months have highlighted the rise in these offences across our region.
During one of the sentences, Magistrate Alan Railton pointed that offences of this nature were new to the Crimes Act to reflect available new technology such as mobile phones.
“It’s become so prevalent in the community, penalties at the higher end have to be used to send a message to those who may do further actions of exploiting innocent people in situations,” he said.
“The message has to be sent loud and clear to the community that this will not be tolerated.”
The Federal Government’s eSafety department refers to these crimes as “image-based abuse” (IBA) and has received more than 4000 reports of IBA since October 2017 and removed around 85 per cent of the content.
E-Safety’s research shows IBA is on the rise across the country, with women aged 18-24 often targeted. There has also been a spike in reports during COVID-19 restrictions.
Research reveals that sharing someone’s nude images can be motivated by a person’s desire to boost their social standing. People who do it show little remorse and often blame the victim for sending the image in the first place.
Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said image-based abuse was a “real form of harm that can have devastating results for its victims”.
“The exchange of intimate images is becoming normalised, especially among young Australians,” she told the Express.
“As parents, we need to get them to focus on the damage that can occur if these images are seen more broadly than they intended.”
Ms Grant said it was equally important for victims of image-based-abuse, young or old, to know that they are not the guilty party and are not alone.
“At eSafety we stand ready to assist and support them,” she said.
“While some victims will pursue criminal legal avenues, many just want the material removed, and the perpetrator held to account. This is where we can help at eSafety, and we have an excellent track record for having this toxic material removed from the internet.”
The sharing of image-based abuse is colloquially referred to as “revenge porn”, something the commission wants to put a stop to.
The reasoning is simple — it implies the victim has done something wrong to provoke “revenge,” and most of this material is not pornography, rather, it’s designed to cause harm to a person.
Peter Farrawell-Smith
Convicted
The Gosford father of two copped a six-month term of imprisonment in February 2020 for posting a picture online of his ex-wife’s sister giving him oral sex.
He captioned the image “Wife cheats on me. Her sister sucks my c*** haha”.
Facts tendered to Gosford Local Court revealed the heavily tattooed 35-year-old started messaging his wife’s sister after they split up and asking her for sex.
When they met up in early 2019, he secretly recorded her performing oral sex on him before posting it to Snapchat.
Magistrate Alan Railton described the offence as “just nasty” and said actions like this won’t be tolerated in the community.
“It’s a nasty offence, a degrading offence, an absolute gross breach of trust,” he said.
“He has photographed her performing intimate acts without her knowledge.”
Farrawell-Smith appealed the decision and managed to escape jail, however the sentence increased to 12 months with half served as home detention and the other half as an Intensive Corrections Order in the community.
Daryl Michael Evans
Convicted
In March, Daryl Evans was sentenced to jail in Wyong Local Court after hacking his ex-girlfriend’s Facebook account and sending nine photos and one video of her masturbating to her entire friends list.
Evans, 34, of Goulburn, was sentenced to a maximum 14 months jail, with a non-parole period of nine months for intentionally distributing intimate images without consent.
An agreed set of court facts stated Evans was in a relationship with a woman, which ended when he went to prison.
On his release the woman contacted him in May 2019 and asked him to delete all the photos and videos he had on a shared iCloud account.
The victim said: “I need you to delete my Facebook off your iCloud and while your at it, delete all those photos, you promised you would”.
The accused said “why are you doing this to me?” but she ended the conversation.
“The accused hung up the phone and again logged into the victim’s Facebook profile and sent nine photos and one video of the victim to her entire contact list, which included her father, her mother and other family members,” the facts read.
The accused then messaged the victim and said “That’s what you get for being a lying peace (sic) of shit”.
Matt Boyd
Convicted
In July, Matthew Boyd was sentenced in Wyong Local Court after he created a fake email account to send emails containing videos of his ex-wife and her lover having sex.
The 32-year-old from Summerland Point pleaded guilty to four offences including making a false accusation to police, hacking his wife’s social media accounts to commit a serious offence, knowingly providing misleading information regarding an officer’s conduct and intimidation.
Court facts stated Mr Boyd’s wife had an affair with another police officer while they worked at Wyong Police Station, which saw the pair exchange messages, photos and create videos of intimate sex acts.
When Boyd learned of his wife’s affair, he accessed an app where he discovered the videos. In January 2019, he created a fictitious Gmail account and doctored up an email so it appeared it had originally been sent by his ex-wife’s lover’s private email address and had been forwarded on a couple of times. The subject of the email was “Enjoy” and the intimate videos were attached.
Police eventually traced the email back to Boyd and he was sentenced to four community corrections orders for a total of two years, along with 200 hours of community service.
Richard Booth
Convicted
Just last week, a Wyongah man appealed against a 12-month sentence for sending naked images of his ex-partner to her dad.
Gosford District Court Judge David Wilson upheld Richard Charles Booth’s sentence of an Intensive Corrections Order (served in the community) after he was found guilty of sending private sexual material using a carriage service
Charge sheets tendered to court revealed Booth, 38, transmitted private sexual material to the victim’s father in a way that was “menacing, offensive and harassing”.
The court heard the images were sent in April 2019 when Booth was arranging a time with the victim to collect their daughter at Bunnings.
Booth sent naked images of the victim to both herself and her father.
Judge Wilson highlighted Booth’s lack of remorse into the offence and indicated if he pursued his appeal, he would go to jail. Needless to say the appeal was withdrawn immediately.