A Dunedin man has avoided a jail term after posting explicit sexual images of a woman on an internet porn site because he believed she had "egged" his car.
Dion Shane Kyle, 32, unemployed, had become very angry when his car was "egged" on December 7 last year.
He decided a particular woman was responsible and published graphically explicit sexual images of her online, tagging them with her name.
When the woman became aware of the images and asked for them to be deleted, Kyle removed them.
"But the damage had already been done by that time," Judge John Macdonald told the defendant, who was sentenced in the Dunedin District Court yesterday.
Kyle earlier admitted breaching a Domestic Violence Act protection order by behaving in a psychologically abusive way to the woman.
It was behaviour which, the judge said was "very much in character" for the defendant, who had an extensive criminal history, with several convictions for breaching protection orders.
What he had done was upsetting and embarrassing for the woman and she was still very affected by it. Although the defendant now said he regretted his actions, that might not be much help to her, the judge said.
Defence lawyer Andrew Dawson said Kyle acknowledged it should not have happened. He had removed the images 10 days after posting them on the site but accepted they could have been copied by others before they were deleted. He had not expected anyone other than the woman to see them.
There had been no issues since the incident and Kyle and the woman had met in a controlled environment. There had been some interaction and he had tried to put things right and to address the emotional impact on her. His income was limited at the moment, but he had been accepted for a job in Golden Bay and would be able to pay emotional harm reparation by instalments.
At the time of the offending, none of the therapeutic interventions of Kyle's release conditions had "kicked in", Mr Dawson said. The defendant was now doing well with counselling and programmes and was particularly concerned about losing his place on those programmes if he went back to jail.
Judge Macdonald said he had seriously considered imprisonment but acknowledged that could be a retrograde step, as Kyle seemed to be doing well on his release conditions. He had not offended since December and was planning to move from the Dunedin area.
On the charge of breaching a protection order, Kyle was sentenced to 12 months' intensive supervision, with special conditions and 160 hours' community work, on top of his existing sentence.
He was also ordered to pay $750 emotional harm reparation.
