A young woman whose ex-boyfriend uploaded intimate footage of her to an adult site has said she can no longer “trust men at all”.
The explicit tape which was secretly recorded was on the porn site for over a year before the victim known as ‘Jane’ was alerted to it.
During that time her cruel ex had even been responding to fellow online users impersonating her in sordid messages.
Jane who still suffers from anxiety over her ordeal was only made aware of the footage after a friend came across it online.
She said her “first response was to run to the bathroom and throw up” when she saw herself on the site.
“It’s not something I would wish on my worst enemy”, she told RTE’s Today with Sean O’Rourke.
Although the site took it down when asked her former partner continued to upload new copies and there was nothing Gardai could do about it as it was not illegal.
“The only thing I could do was to go an visit him and to ask him to take it down and to delete it and to delete all record of it from his laptop”, she said.
Jane said she “didn’t even know he had a camera in the room” and said if her friend hadn’t found it it could still be online which she said was “what’s really scary” about her situation.
On Wednesday Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan sought Cabinet approval for a new bill to punish those guilty of revenge porn with hefty fines and imprisonment.
Jane said that while such measures were “a step in the right direction” she would like to see perpetrators names being placed on an offenders list.
“If you get a fine that’s not going to follow you”, she said. “That’s not going to impact the perpetrator’s life going forward the way it impacts the victim’s life going forward”.
Noeline Blackwell of the Rape Crisis Centre said penalties were needed that “show how seriously that the state is taking this”.
“There also needs to be sanctions around what you can do about confiscating materials and ensuring that it doesn’t happen again”, she added.
Labour leader Brendan Howlin who drafted the original version of the bill described current legislation as “ancient”.
“People feel that they somehow can do things online that would not be acceptable in direct discourse with people”, he said.
He said that online abuse causes “real emotional harm to people” and on occasion results in suicide.
“I think there is a huge well of hurt going on online that we actually haven’t witnessed in the light of day yet”, he said.
Irish woman whose schoolgirl photos were uploaded to porn site reveals 'lack of justice'
