A woman searching for cooking recipes stumbled upon a shocking discovery when she found a video of herself in an explicit act.
Natalie Brown, hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, was seeking a recipe on the Food Network. However, upon pressing the ‘F’ button, she was redirected to a site called Fetlife, a Canadian social networking platform catering to individuals with sexual fetishes.
To her horror, she discovered a video of herself completely naked and involved in a sexual act, one which she was unaware had been recorded.
In an interview with CBC News, Natalie expressed her feelings: “I was so humiliated. I felt stupid, I felt embarrassed, I felt scared.”
Natalie was devastated to learn that her partner had recorded the video while she was blindfolded, as per his request, and later uploaded it to Fetlife.
“I didn’t agree to be filmed like that. I didn’t want to be filmed,” she stated.
The Dartmouth Provincial Court was informed that while Natalie’s face and upper body were not visible in the 12-second clip, her lower body was shown fully unclothed.
Her ex-boyfriend, Conor Dolan, aged 43, was charged with voyeurism and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images in April the previous year.
Initially pleading not guilty, Dolan accepted a plea deal where the voyeurism charge was dropped in exchange for admitting guilt on the distribution charge.
This agreement prevented the case from going to trial, though the judge noted Dolan might have faced imprisonment if it had proceeded.
As a result, Dolan received a four-month conditional sentence starting January 6, placing him under house arrest and marking him with a criminal record.
In court, when given the chance to speak, Dolan expressed being ‘tremendously sorry.’
The video, shot in the couple’s shared home, also featured Dolan holding her dog in his Fetlife profile picture.
Natalie’s voice was audible in the footage, leading the judge to conclude she was reasonably identifiable.
Judge Tim Daley noted: “This was an act of intimate partner online sexual abuse. No question of it. It constituted a massive loss of privacy.”
Natalie is now driven to spread awareness about such abuse and revenge porn, highlighting the challenges she faced in removing the intimate footage.
Fetlife reportedly refused her request, asserting it was Dolan’s property and that she couldn’t verify her identity in the video.
Crown attorney Paul Niefer mentioned that jail time is ‘usually reserved for cases that involve revenge porn type situations, where somebody is doing it on purpose to harm the victim or to get back at them for some reason.’
He added: “In this case, we didn’t have that factor.”
The court heard that the video was uploaded two weeks before Natalie’s discovery in September 2019 but remained online for four years, unbeknownst to her, after Dolan assured her it was deleted.
He admitted at the time to having a ‘porn/sex addiction,’ leading to the couple’s separation in December 2019.
However, Dolan reactivated the Fetlife account a mere five months after claiming to have deleted it, eventually removing the footage on January 28, 2024.
In a statement to the court, he explained that he posted the video to attract other sexual partners and it was ‘not about her.’
Natalie tearfully stated in court: “The idea that anyone could reduce my body, my autonomy, my dignity, my humanity, to something for their consumption without my consent is unbearable.”