A Fife man who used a sex tape to blackmail his teenage ex-girlfriend has narrowly escaped jail at Cupar Sheriff Court.
Sheriff Charles Macnair told Paul Culbert (34) the charges against him were ”extremely serious” and merited a custodial sentence.
Instead, however, Culbert, of Glebe Street, Leven, was instructed to forfeit his mobile phone and to carry out 165 hours of unpaid work under a supervisory community payback.
In addition he was ordered to pay £250 in compensation to his 17-year-old former partner for sending her ”grossly offensive” text messages and threatening to upload an initimate video featuring both of them on a social networking site.
The texts were sent between July 7 and July 9 while Culbert was at Greenacres residential accommodation in Anstruther.
The court previously heard Culbert had been in a relationship with the teenager for nine months before they split up and he sent the messages in a misguided attempt to win her back.
Depute fiscal Joanne Smith said: ”The texts which were sent were essentially an attempt to blackmail her to reconcile the relationship.
”The complainer worried he would carry out these threats knowing he had the video on his laptop. She said she felt shocked, alarmed and in a state of fear.”
The woman then contacted the police, after which Culbert was detained by police and had his laptop and mobile phone seized.
Defence lawyer Cheryl Wallace said her client accepted the text messages were ”a bit over the top,” but said Culbert had no real intention of carrying out his threats as the video would have exposed him as well as his ex-girlfriend.
”He is deeply embarrassed and regretful of his actions and accepts they were completely uncalled for,” she added. ”My client has no difficulty in the video being deleted. He has no intention to use the video in any way but would like his laptop back because he had bought it only a month earlier for £450, so it is of value to him.”
Addressing Culbert on Thursday, Sheriff Macnair said: ”These texts that you sent were extremely distressing to the complainer and threats of sending or distributing a video of this sort is in my view extremely serious.
“However, I’m prepared to impose a non-custodial sentence. These orders are alternatives to imprisonment and not any other sort of order.”
Culbert was told he should pay £250 to his victim as ”a token of the harm” she had suffered as a result of the offence and was told his phone, on which the sex tape was originally filmed, would be forfeited.
Sheriff Macnair said he was powerless to order police to get rid of the laptop, which used to store the video, as it was not mentioned in the charge before the court.
Instead he imposed a three-month ”conduct requirement” under the Proceeds of Crime Scotland Act to ensure Culbert deleted all videos of his ex-partner from his laptop within 24 hours of having it returned to him by police and to produce the laptop to the relevant authorities to ensure the footage had been completely erased.