A VENGEFUL Coventry man dumped by his ex-lover blackmailed her out of her money with threats of posting on the internet a video of them having sex.
Nitin Patria’s ‘absolutely merciless’ revenge porn threats terrified his victim so much that she paid him hundreds of pounds to meet his demands.
The video may not even have existed but he continued making more threats demanding even more payments, a court heard.
Patria, aged 22, of Clara Road, Stoke, Coventry, was jailed for two years and eight months after pleading guilty at Warwick Crown Court to four charges of blackmail.
A court heard new laws since April covering revenge porn carried a maxium two-year sentence, but the blackmail and ‘menaces’ made this even more serious.
Prosecutor John Brotherton said the young woman met Patria in November last year.
She ended the brief relationship by text because she ‘did not believe he was being honest with her about certain matters.’
Her text had told him she thought it was ‘an unhealthy relationship’ for both of them, adding she hoped he would understand and to ‘take care.’
They had slept together more than once, and Patria responded by asking her whether he needed to get checked for any sexually-transmitted disease.
She said it had nothing to do with that, but he followed up with a text stating: “So do I need to get checked?
“BTW I have a video on my phone of us having sex. You better see me one last time or I’ll do something horrible with it.”
Patria, who has since admitted he had not recorded them having sex, then sent a menacing text saying: “I know you’re in Coventry. I went past yours earlier.”
When she asked him what he wanted, he replied: “What are you willing to do so that it doesn’t go onto the internet? Will you pay for the video so it’s yours, or what?”
Not knowing whether he had recorded a video without her knowledge or consent, she agreed to pay him £500 to delete it.
They met at a building society where she withdrew cash and handed him the £500 – plus a further £100 he demanded from her for being late.
Mr Brotherton said Patria then purported to demonstrate he had deleted a file from his phone, although she did not see what it was.
An hour later, he contacted her again, said he still had it, and demanded another £500, and she paid £200.
When further demands followed, she decided she could take no more and went to the police.
When he was arrested Patria admitted demanding money, but claimed she was an escort who had asked him to make the film.
Recorder Stephen Linehan QC said: “All that was untrue. She did not ask him to film her, she was not an escort, and no film has ever been discovered. I’m quite sure there wasn’t one.”
David Murray, defending, said Patria was hurt at the relationship ending and suffered depression.
Jailing Patria and making a restraining order banning him from contacting his victim, Recorder Linehan told him: “It was a crime of immense cruelty. It was one you knew to be cruel, and you didn’t care. You were absolutely merciless.
“For a respectable young woman, the prospect of having intimate scenes shown on the internet must have been appalling.”
