Art student charged with revenge porn, judge enters 'not guilty' verdict

[UpstartCrow]

The image was of a cropped torso, and was part of a larger piece.
How did this case came to court? The prosecution didn't even offer any evidence, and the accused was awarded her costs.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/12/art-student-charged-wth-revenge-porn-submitting-photograph-topless/

That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read.
Waste of money and time. And minimising what revenge porn actually is.

Yeah, to be honest this kind of thing isn't a surprise anymore. How the CPS is still managing to function is beyond me. If you want a clearer picture of why stuff is getting so bad in the criminal law system I really recommend reading 'The Secret Barrister: Stories of the law and how it's broken'. It's eye-opening, to say the least.

Thanks *@HaruNoSakura *, I think I will.

QuentinSummers IKR? Does anyone know how much a case like this costs to bring to court?

Surely this doesn't meet the definition of porn either? Otherwise all the nude statues could be considered porn - better shut the National Gallery too!

On a more serious note, I find it very concerning that when legislation is created to protect women from common occurrences, we end up with a trivialised case with a male victim - it feels like an international backlash from the CPS.

That's insane! The prosecution didnt even bother to submit evidence. All that time & money wasted not to mention months of stress for the accused.

I don't understand this at all.

"Prosecutor Oliver Dunkin, after this explanation, decided not to submit any evidence and told the court: "We were all in agreement that now we have consideration of the art project and looking at the case properly in the round, we cannot put this forward to a jury.""

So - he needed the judge to explain this to him before he realised the context? Was he not aware of it before? Surely that's the job of prosecutors, to find out this sort of information?

It's all very odd.

"that's odd, why would mumsnet be angry that an attempt was made to prosecute someone who shared a naked photo of someone without consent?"

~clicks link, sees that women shared a naked photo of a man~

"ah, there it is"

*@anneoneill *
We do not talk to one another contemptuously here, the way you all do over on AIBU.
Just an fyi, in case you care.

There's plenty of contempt shown in these parts!

I being to suspect you of being a pbp, annie.Time will tell.

On a more serious note, I find it very concerning that when legislation is created to protect women from common occurrences, we end up with a trivialised case with a male victim - it feels like an international backlash from the CPS.

This was my thought also, reading this.

It's hard to see how a heavily edited and completely unidentifiable male torso, one picture of many in a student art project, could ever be construed as revenge porn. The judge made the right call on this.

It is utterly trivial and should never have come to court.

However I doubt her work would have suffered if she had omitted this one photograph or substituted a photograph of someone who consented to be included. Clearly the ex-boyfriend recognised himself and she must have had an inkling he would so I am not persuaded that naked photographs of her ex are fair game, doctored or not.