Man handed over £28,000 to woman threatening to post his nude photos online
A woman who threatened to send naked pictures of an online boyfriend to his friends and family unless he kept transferring her money has been jailed.
Lauren Dowling, 24, enticed the man – who she never met in person – by swapping explicit photos over Snapchat in May 2018. But she quickly dumped him before demanding cash from his inheritance to stop her forwarding on the intimate photos he had sent her to his loved ones.
Cardiff Crown Court heard the terrified victim emptied his savings, took out payday loans and borrowed money from friends in order to buy her silence – eventually handing over almost £30,000 during the nine-month plot.
Prosecutor Heath Edwards said: ‘The toll on the complainant eventually became too much for him to bear and he had no money left.’
Dowling, from Caerphilly, admitted blackmail and was jailed for two years and eight months.
Judge Richard Twomlow told her: ‘Your offence was callous and calculated over a nine-month period, leaving your victim in severe and significant debt.’
The court heard Dowling ended the relationship by telling the man she was seeing someone else – a fictitious new boyfriend called Liam.
Mr Edwards said: ‘She sent a message to the victim pretending to be from Liam. Liam demanded £10 and threatened to send the explicit picture of the victim to the family and share it with his friends of social media if he did not send the money.’
He told the court that the man was ‘extremely frightened’ and transferred the sum, adding: ‘It encouraged her to make regular and repeated demands for money.’
Between July 2018 and April the following year he sent payments ranging from as little as £10 to larger ones of up to £1,250.
In total he parted with £28,138.
The court heard he relinquished his entire £20,000 inheritance, leaving him and his partner unable to afford a new home.
Defending, Laurence Jones said Dowling was ‘immature’, had been addicted to cocaine and had run up a drugs debt.
He added that she accepted the offence was ‘emotionally cruel’, but said she is now clean.
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