Warning: Graphic content A B.C. tribunal has awarded a woman $15,000 after her ex-partner threatened to share video of them engaged in “an explicit, non-consensual sex act.” The ex also stored the video—along with intimate photos of the woman—in a gallery on a tablet that the former couple’s six-year-old child could access, and the child found the gallery. These details form part of Civil Resolution Tribunal member Megan Stewart’s reasons for her ruling in the case, which was published online this week. The parties are referred to by random initials in the decision. Stewart ordered a publication ban on their identities. The woman, referred to as YS, brought the case against her ex, referred to as DF, seeking $60,000 in damages under B.C.’s Intimate Images Protection Act. DF did not participate in the CRT process, despite being properly served. The decision uses the gender-neutral pronoun “they” to refer to DF throughout. According to the decision, the parties separated in 2020. YS discovered the video’s existence in June of this year. She had no recollection of its recording. Stewart ruled that DF had “shared” the video “by failing to take adequate care to ensure their 6-year-old could not access the intimate images on a tablet the respondent provided to the child for their use, such as by installing parental controls or locks,” according to the decision. “I also found the respondent threatened to share the intimate images more widely, based on two videos the applicant submitted,” the decision continues. “In the videos, the respondent made threats I found the applicant reasonably interpreted as relating to her intimate images, despite not mentioning the images directly. I noted that in one of the videos, the respondent made the threat to ruin the applicant’s career in the context of the applicant allegedly having posted something online that she should not have. From that, I inferred the respondent’s threat was about reciprocating in kind by posting things they should not post, namely, the applicant’s intimate images.” Stewart concluded that the circumstances of the case “demand an award of damages,” noting the harm YS suffered and the carelessness and lack of remorse demonstrated by DF. “The applicant has expressed fear that the respondent may have other images, and that they may distribute them more widely in an attempt to harm the applicant further, to which the respondent has provided no response at all,” the decision reads. “The lack of any acknowledgment is concerning.” In assessing how much she should award to YS as damages, the tribunal member noted that the cap on how much the CRT can award in intimate images cases was recently raised from $5,000 to $75,000. Only two decisions had been published since that threshold was changed, according to the decision. They included an award of $3,000 and an award of $20,000, in cases that had little in common with the case of YS. Another decision, published the same day as Stewart’s, awarded $50,000 to the victim. In this case, Stewart decided that $15,000 would be an appropriate award, given that the sharing of the intimate images was “not widespread” and there were no public posts of the images. “Even so, I accept the applicant suffered emotional distress at the discovery that her minor child had seen a video of her engaged in an explicit sexual act, as well as intimate photographs of her,” the decision reads. “There is no way of knowing whether or how this will affect the applicant’s relationship with her child. Whatever the case, the non-consensual disclosure of an intimate image is a serious violation of a person’s privacy.” The tribunal member broke down the $15,000 into two chunks: $10,000 as “compensatory damages” for the harm YS suffered because of the sharing of the intimate images and $5,000 as “aggravated damages” for the additional harm caused by the threats to distribute the images more widely. If DF does not pay, post-judgment interest will accrue. If you or someone you know is struggling with sexual assault or trauma, the following resources are available to support people in crisis:
