The Crown Prosecution Services reports that a 44 year-old man from Bournemouth was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to 28 offenses of sending an indecent communication and pleading guilty to one offense of unauthorized access to computer data.
Mark Gammon, senior lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service, explained:
Graeme Brandon stole someone’s identity and used it to send pictures of his private parts to a number of women, causing them shock and upset. Not only did he cause the women to be disgusted and shocked when they received these unsolicited indecent pictures, but he also showed cowardice by using someone else’s identity.
This case has had a devastating impact on the man whose identity was stolen by Graeme Brandon.
The victim had a successful career in the Royal Marine and was about to be deployed to a foreign country when people from his community and friends started angrily to contact him saying that they had received pictures of an explicit nature.
According to CPS, Graeme Brandon accessed the Royal Marine’s Facebook account and stole data from it. Using the victim’s picture he contacted women, sending them a picture of his erect penis, pretending that he was the man whose identity he had stolen.
The investigation revealed that Brandon obtained details of the women through Gumtree after they had advertised items to be sold.
The male victim who lived and worked in a close community said in his personal statement:
The thought that people were doubting me was unbearable.(…) There have been incidents when I was out with my family that people recognized my face and started shouting things like ‘Paedo’ towards me.
I have had my car damaged, nails in tires and wiper blades pulled off. I have had numerous threats from people who contacted me believing I was responsible and I have felt helpless in trying to clear my name and trying to convince people I was not responsible. As a direct result of what has happened it is hard to put down into words the effect this had had on my life and my mental health.