A MAN has been jailed for 18 months after he threatened to publish intimate images of a woman online and then sent her hundreds of degrading and abusive emails
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Craig Coyle, 37, and the woman had been in a relationship for a number of months having met on the dating site Tinder in December 2022.
They began their relationship early the following year and broke up in September 2023.
Coyle, of Holly Court, Ballybrack, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to threatening to publish intimate images of the woman without her consent on September 23, 2023.
He also pleaded guilty to harassment on dates between September 2023 and December 2023 and two charges of trespass at the woman’s home on December 23, 2023 and January 19, 2024. He has no previous convictions.
The offence falls under legislation known as Coco’s Law, which criminalises sharing or threatening to share intimate images without consent. The penalties include fines and/or up to seven years’ imprisonment.
Today, Coyle was handed a three-year prison sentence, with the final 18 months suspended on strict conditions, including that he engage with the Probation Services, disclose any intimate partner relationship and engage with appropriate programmes and services.
Imposing sentence, Judge Pauline Codd said the serious nature of the offending and its impact on the victim were among the aggravating features of the case.
Just Codd said: “No one should be visited with what the victim went through. The case had to be marked with a custodial sentence in all the circumstances.”
The judge also imposed an order that Coyle have no contact with the injured party on a permanent basis.
At a previous hearing, Judge Pauline Codd read a number of the emails Coyle sent the woman, including one which the prosecution said was too graphic to be read into the record.
Judge Codd noted that the woman had to purchase a security alarm after she caught Coyle outside her home one winter’s evening in 2023.
‘PROWLING AROUND HER HOME’
Describing Coyle’s behaviour as “horrendous”, the judge said: “He was prowling around her home in the early hours of the morning”.
The woman read her victim impact statement into the record and said she had gone from someone who didn’t set her alarm at night to someone who “has a house alarm and cameras on 24/7”.
She said her mental health has deteriorated because of Coyle’s “depraved, degrading and disgusting” messages to her.
She said: “No one has ever spoken to me with that level of hatred.”
She said her self-esteem went to zero and she began to worry that she’d lose her job. She also started to worry that Coyle would be there when she came home from work.
The woman said: “I am not the person I was when we first met. I am a shell of my former self.”
