By Tara Shaskey, Open Justice journalist of 
Photo: 123RF
A former top sports star threatened to post a woman's naked photos to her social media accounts before sending a series of the images to a relative's phone.
The man, who represented New Zealand internationally, was told by the woman that what he was doing was inappropriate and to delete the photos, which he had obtained consensually.
But he ignored her request and repeatedly sent them for more than a week.
Now, the man, who has interim name suppression, has appeared in New Plymouth District Court where Judge Tony Greig has warned him that he may soon be wearing an ankle monitor as a consequence of the offending.
Today, he pleaded guilty to three representative charges of posting an intimate visual recording without consent.
A representative charge means he committed multiple offences of the same type in similar circumstances.
According to the police summary of facts, on 23 May this year the man sent the woman several naked photos of herself.
He told her to remember he had a lot of photos and that they were "worth a share", and threatened to post them to her social media accounts.
On 30 May, the man sent a naked photo of the woman to the phone of one of her relatives, with the intention and understanding that it would be her who saw the communication and not the relative.
He followed it with a message saying he "loved the photo".
The woman asked him to stop and to delete the images, but he went on to send several more photos of her.
One of the photos was sent with the message: "Shame you are a f***wit with nice t***".
According to the summary, the messaging continued between 5 and 8 June with the man sending photos to the relative's phone on at least two occasions.
During the three days, the woman asked him twice to delete the images and pointed out that what he was doing was inappropriate.
On one occasion, he responded that she should not have shared the photos with him.
In court, Judge Greig entered the guilty pleas, ordered a presentence report and referred the case to restorative justice.
The judge said home detention and community detention would be considered as sentencing options as prison was the starting point for this type of offending.
Name suppression of the man would continue until his sentencing on 28 November.
However, defence lawyer Nathan Bourke said an application for permanent name suppression would likely be made.
* This story first appeared in the New Zealand Herald.
