An offshore worker went on to his colleague’s Facebook account, downloaded intimate images of his wife and posted them to an internet porn site.
Phillip Williams, 40, was working on the Kittiwake North Sea platform when he discovered the explicit pictures on his coworker’s unattended computer.
The man’s Facebook was left open on the device after the man had finished his shift.
Williams saved around eighteen images of the spouse in a state of undress before uploading them to an erotic website along with snaps of his own ex-girlfriend.
His work friend’s wife later found out that her privacy had been violated when someone contacted her online to ask if she was the woman in the pictures.
Woman’s shock at unknown privacy invasion offshore in the North Sea
Fiscal depute Emma Petersen told Aberdeen Sheriff Court that, at some point in April 2019, the former partner began a brief relationship with Williams, during which time they exchanged intimate photographs.
Around the same period, the other woman’s husband had been working with Williams on the Kittiwake maintenance platform in the North Sea.
In April 2020, she received a Facebook message from someone that included a photograph of her in underwear, asking, “Is this you?”
The woman recognised it as a picture she had sent to her husband.
She carried out a search on the person who had sent the message and then discovered that the picture had been uploaded to a porn site.
“The complainer logged on to the website and discovered a number of photographs of her, 18 of which were intimate photographs,” Ms Petersen explained.
“All of those images were ones she had sent to her husband and no one else,” the fiscal added.
The woman noticed that the person who had sent the Facebook message liked the same account belonging to a local radio station as Williams, who was a Facebook friend of her husband.
It was Williams whom she had initially suspected.
Her husband then confirmed that he had been working on the same oil platform as Williams at the time in question back in 2019.
Offshore worker was caught after what he did using his North Sea colleague’s Facebook
The matter was reported to the police who confirmed that the woman’s husband’s Facebook account had been accessed on April 29 2019 at 5am.
The pictures had been uploaded to the porn site soon after, with photographs of the woman who Williams had dated being uploaded at the same time.
Williams was interviewed by police in England and admitted he had been working offshore when he found his colleague had left his computer logged on, opened it up and found the previous messages and photographs.
He then downloaded the photos and sent them to himself before uploading the images of the two women to the porno site.
Ms Petersen told the court that, during the interview, Williams acknowledged that neither woman would have known that he had uploaded their intimate pictures to the internet, adding that he “didn’t mean to cause distress”.
The police then contacted the woman, who had been in a brief relationship with Williams, and informed her what had occurred.
She was described as being “horrified and embarrassed”.
Police in England contacted Police Scotland to pass on her criminal complaint.
Phillip Williams admitted his antics in the North Sea were ‘unreasonable’
Appearing in the dock, Williams pled guilty to two charges of disclosing intimate photographs by posting them on the internet without the two women’s consent.
His defence solicitor, Michael Horsman, told the court that his client’s position “now is that he fully accepts his actions were unreasonable”.
Horsman added: “Mr Williams was interviewed by police in July 2020 and made admissions at the time. He was working offshore at the time the offence was committed.
“At that time, he was suffering from poor mental health and subsequently consulted his doctor about the issues he was experiencing.”
As an alternative to prison, Sheriff Annella Cowan imposed a community payback order on Williams – including supervision for two years.
She also ordered Williams, of Captain Cook’s Close, Staithes in North Yorkshire, to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.
He was also placed on the sex offenders register for two years.
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