Divorced From Reality – A Story Of Image Based Abuse

In a recent judgment of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT), the SDT addressed the misconduct of Mr Sunny Sidhu, a solicitor who exploited his position to inappropriately request explicit images from a client, referred to as Person A.

Background

Person A approached Mr Sidhu, a solicitor at LDJ Solicitors LLP, for assistance with her family matter. Between January and April 2021, Mr. Sidhu requested explicit images from Person A under the guise of needing them for legal reasons related to her case.

During their interactions, Mr Sidhu convinced Person A that her ex-husband might use explicit images to harm her reputation through “revenge porn” (now known as image based abuse). He insisted that he required all of the explicit photos and videos she had ever sent to her ex-husband to protect her in Court. Trusting his professional advice, Person A reluctantly provided the requested materials, believing they were crucial for her case.

Following a report to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the case was passed to the SDT and Mr Sidhu was struck off the roll as being able to act as a solicitor, largely as there was no proof that the photos and videos were being sought for anything to do with the client’s case.

Clearly, Mr Sidhu being struck off will protect future clients from a similar incident arising. However, it does not ensure that Mr Sihdu has deleted the photos and videos or that he will not disseminate them to third parties.

What can be done?

It is now established law that sexual images created by an individual and then sent to a third party do create a duty of confidence given their personal nature – i.e. there is a presumption that the images will be for that individual and that individual alone to view. If the recipient then uses the photos or videos for another purpose, such as circulating them to other individuals or by uploading them to the internet, the creator can take steps to pursue the recipient for damages as well as seeking an injunction for the images to be taken down.

The claims that an individual would pursue in such an instance would be on the basis of misuse of information and/or breach of the creator’s rights pursuant to data protection legislation as well as other causes of action. For further information on the potential claims that could be pursued, please see the previous blog.

Once an image has been uploaded to the internet, it can be very difficult, if not impossible, to ensure that it is entirely removed. There have been a number of high profile cases where the Court has in such circumstances been willing to award significant compensation – see our previous blog.

In the case of Person A, there is no evidence that Mr Sidhu disseminated the photos/videos to third parties. In such circumstances, the Court may be minded to grant Person A an injunction preventing Mr Sidhu from disseminating the photos/videos and further an order requiring deletion of the same from all of Mr Sidhu’s devices.

The case of Person A demonstrates that vulnerable people can be taken advantage of by people that they ought to be able to trust. In such circumstances, victims do have avenues that they can explore both in terms of protecting others from future abuse by the perpetrators as well as in terms of being able to recover the images/videos and seeking compensation from the perpetrator.