Court takes pity on despondent defendant
The first person charged under Western Australia’s revenge porn laws has been spared a prison term.
Mitchell Joseph Brindley, 25, admitted creating five Instagram accounts in his ex-girlfriend’s name and posting 10 nude photographs of her over four days in April, after they broke up.
Fremantle Magistrates Court head the pair met at age 16 and began a tumultuous intimate relationship in November last year.
Defence counsel Terry Dobson said his client attempted to take his own life because of their difficulties and wound up in hospital.
While the girlfriend initially stood by him, she later sent text message to friends saying he was a basket case, so he chose to lash out, Mr Dobson said.
“He thought he would do it in a non-violent way but the mental harm is just as significant,” the lawyer said.
“And herein lies the problem of the social media nastiness.”
Magistrate Dean Potter said Brindley had behaved impulsively and seemed to have been in the depths of despair.
The magistrate said Brindley had committed the first of four categories of image-based sexual abuse known as “relationship retribution”.
He would have been handed jail time if the offending had been in the category of “sextortion”, for instance, which involves threatening to share intimate images to coerce more intimate acts or money from a victim.
