A jilted man posted ‘revenge porn’ images of his girlfriend on social media and sent them to her employer.

Zane Nel, aged 23 and of Duchy Close, Dorchester admitted disclosing private sexual images with intent to cause distress at Bournemouth Crown Court on Friday.

The court heard Nel met the 17-year-old victim at a festival and they had been in a relationship for around four years.

Helen Easterbrook, mitigating, said the relationship had soured at the end of last year and an encounter over the Christmas period had led the victim to block Nel on social media.

On Christmas Day Nel posted four explicit photos of the victim to Instagram and sent them to several of her friends via iMessage and Facebook. Two of the images were said to be ‘extremely distressing.’

The photos were also sent to the victim’s employer accompanied with the message: “I can’t help being a little slut and cheating on my boyfriend.”

John Dyer, defending said the breakdown of the relationship had ‘devastated’ Nel.

“Twenty years ago, if he had wanted to defame her, he couldn’t have flicked a little switch in that moment of rage. He accepts completely that what he did was vile and absolutely wrong,” Mr Dyer said.

Mr Dyer added a ‘redeeming feature’ was that the photos had been posted to Instagram, to ‘a limited number of contacts’ including Nel’s sister, who called him immediately and told him to take the images down - which he did after 10 minutes.

“He was so angry, he didn’t realise this could get him in trouble,” Mr Dyer said.

However, Miss Easterbrook said she believed the court was being ‘misled’ and by posting to Instagram Nel had ‘given up the rights to the images.’

“When you post on your stream, the picture then appears in all your contacts streams. It is then available for them to share and it is available to be searched for. Something that is uploaded to the internet can never be deleted,” she said. Judge, Recorder Haggan QC told Nel he was ‘very close to going to prison’.

“These are very serious offences. You did this in a fit of temper because you wanted to strike back at her,” he said.

Nel was handed a 12 month community order with 30 days rehabilitation to undergo counselling on respectful relationships and anger management. He was ordered to undertake 100 hours of unpaid work, pay £500 compensation, £350 in costs and a restraining order banning he from contacting the victim or mentioning her on social media was put in place for five years.