The B.C. provincial court has sentenced a 42-year-old man to five months in jail for posting sexually graphic videos and photos of his ex-partner on Pornhub without her consent.
Judge Robin McQuillan’s sentencing this month said the accused, whose name is covered by a publication ban, started dating the victim in 2020, and their “on and off relationship” lasted just over two years.
The man made several videos of them having sex, some with consent and others without, but the victim never agreed to them being posted online, the ruling said.
He pleaded guilty to a sole charge of publishing intimate images without consent.
The judge found the man “repeatedly” tried to contact the victim after they broke up for the last time, but she blocked his number, and in March 2023 he sent her a Pornhub profile page featuring her photograph and nickname, and admitted to posting the materials online.
The woman’s face was “clearly identifiable” and the materials included “sexually graphic” descriptions and titles, the ruling said.
The court ruling said the woman immediately contacted police, who found 18 videos and 80 photographs that showed the victim. The offending photos and videos were taken down by Montreal-headquartered Pornhub in November 2023 after being contacted by police.
McQuillan sentenced the man to five months in custody and 18 months probation, finding there were “considerable aggravating features present” in the case.
“In particular, the identifiability of the victim, the very public nature and availability of the images over a very long period of time, and the pre-meditated and revenge motivated nature of the acts place this offence in a more egregious category than some others,” McQuillan ruled. In these circumstances, a sentence must send a message of denunciation and deterrence.”
Moira Aikenhead, a lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s Allard School of Law, said the sentence seemed appropriate, but victims in such cases still have to live with effects of the harm done, even if an offender is jailed.
“The victim is not getting those images back. They are not getting that violation of sexual integrity and bodily autonomy back,” she said.
“They know that these images are now basically out there indefinitely … Typically, when something’s been on Pornhub, there’s no real way of them scrubbing it from the internet.”
She said British Columbia’s Intimate Images Protection Act offers victims a civil-law avenue to having offending images removed more quickly, since the “harm that this violation causes is inadequately addressed by the criminal justice system.”
Aikenhead said sharing an intimate image without consent is potentially just the beginning of the harm, even after it’s removed.
“There’s always the potential that it remains somewhere online or saved on someone’s device and could resurface at any time. And that’s a fear that victims have to just live with indefinitely because there’s no way that a court can ensure that the images are not stored somewhere on the planet and could resurface in the future,” she said.
The ruling in Port Coquitlam, B.C., said police found the man created the Pornhub account in August 2022, and the videos had more than 10,000 views, and while most of the materials were uploaded between September and November 2022, some had been posted as late as March 2023.
The police investigation, the ruling said, also found that the man had set up the account with his banking information, suggesting he “might receive a payout” if the materials reached a certain number of views.
The man had abided by bail conditions and had also sought professional help surrounding his substance abuse, expressing “regret, embarrassment and shame for his offending actions.”
“His comments appeared to be sincere and heartfelt,” the judge wrote.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 27, 2026.
Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press
