Jail time for young Hobart man after online ‘spite and revenge’ slur campaign against teenage girl

A young Bridgewater man committed a serious case of revenge porn, motivated by “spite and revenge” against an American teenage girl when she dumped him. He’s now been sentenced.

Julian Luke Benson pleaded guilty to multiple counts of possessing or controlling child abuse material, obtained or accessed using a carriage service.

A young Bridgewater man will spend a year in jail for a serious case of revenge porn committed in “spite and revenge” against an American girl when she dumped him.

Julian Luke Benson, now 23, set about a “deliberate and cruel” campaign to cause the 17-year-old girl “extreme public humiliation and distress” during 2021.

Benson uploaded sexually explicit images of the girl to his personal Twitter account, tagging her employer, and created fake YouTube and Pornhub accounts in her name, with clear images of her face and suggesting she was a pedophile.

Following his crimes committed in 2021, Benson has pleaded guilty to 13 offences including possessing or controlling child abuse material using a carriage service, producing, publishing and making available child exploitation material, and using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.

While sentencing on Thursday, Supreme Court judge Robert Pearce said Benson was 21 when he met the girl on Discord – a messaging app used in the gaming community.

Supreme Court of Tasmania, Salamanca Place, Hobart, Tasmania. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Richard Jupe

Benson then used “emotional pressure” to persuade the girl to send images and videos of herself, including material of her masturbating and engaging in striptease.

Without her knowledge, Benson took screenshots and captures of the material or otherwise downloaded it over five devices.

Justice Pearce said “one particularly disturbing” video showed the girl engaging in sexual activity with Benson’s name carved on her bleeding thigh.

When the girl told him she no longer wished to communicate with him, Benson threatened her by giving her a deadline by which she must talk to him – telling her “permanent damage incoming” and calling her a “disgusting whore”.

After uploading images of her on Twitter, Benson sent messages to police in Oregon, telling them she intended to engage in sex with an adult.

He threatened to release the sexual material of her “on multiple platforms” and told the girl he “would make sure she lost her job”.

“These were not empty threats,” Justice Pearce said, noting Benson created fake accounts pretending to be the girl on various online platforms, and publishing the sexual material.

Under the fake accounts, Benson made a number of “offensive and humiliating false allegations and slurs” including that her mother was a drug user and that her father bashed his wife.

Justice Pearce noted the girl was 17, at the “upper range of being a child”, and that his lawyer argued Benson did not consider her body a child’s body – and that he was not sexually interested in children.

Benson was sentenced to two years and three months’ imprisonment, but will be released after one year under a recognisance order, during which he must be of good behaviour for two years, and be under the supervision of a probation officer.

His name will remain on the sexual offenders’ register for five years upon his release from prison.

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