Pro IQRA News Updates.
This is a sextortionist who swindled £3,500 from a married lover by threatening to expose their illicit affair before sending the photos to his wife anyway.
ebbie Southern, 55, sent a bunch of sexually intimate photos to the man’s wife, with the caption, “Did he catch your eye now?” , although he had already delivered thousands.
Souther is due to be sentenced at Antrim Crown Court on Monday and faces a tense wait to find out if she will be jailed.
The mother-of-two refused to discuss her insult after he approached her at her home. Then she closed the door in a reporter’s face.
South, of Dungiven’s high street, previously admitted charges of extortion and revealing a private sexual image.
Blackmailing people with sexual images is often referred to as “sextortion”.
On Friday at Antrim Crown Court, Prosecutor Mark Farrell said Southern and her victim had begun an extramarital affair in August 2020, and the victim had sent her “private sexual images of himself”.
He continued, “Very shortly after this affair, she asked him for about £1,000 and said that if he did not give it, she would tell his partner about the affair and send her the pictures.”
The victim paid the cash before ending the affair, the court heard, but the smitten lovers would still rekindle the fling within weeks.
In January 2021, Southern again demanded £5,000 from the victim “under similar circumstances, and being afraid that the defendant would carry out the threats, gave her £2,500”, the court was told.
Despite later “cutting off all contact” with everyone living in Dungiven, the victim bumped into Southerner shortly afterwards and waved at her in the street, prompting the disapproving mistress to contact his partner on social media.
At first, the victim’s wife tried to ignore the messages, but Al Janoubi later sent her a set of candid intimate photos and asked, “Does he catch your eye now?”
Arrested and interrogated, she confessed to the crimes.
While racketeering offenses were always serious “this case is a low case” but could lead to a prison sentence, the prosecutor Mr Farrell told Antrim Crown Court.
He added that he struggled “to find a case where a non-custodial sentence was imposed,” arguing that it was very clear that the custody threshold was good and really crossed.
I agree that this case did not involve violence or threats of violence. However, it still carries a psychological threat in the sense that private photos will be made public or sent to a spouse in the course of an affair.
Defense attorney Damien Halliron made an impassioned plea for mitigation, saying the case is unique in that it focuses on “a consensual, albeit promiscuous, sexual relationship,” and noting that the South has not had an “easy paper round.”
He also said that the £3,500 had been fully compensated.
The lawyer told the court that her mother rejected his client at a young age, witnessed her father’s death, had two children to a man who “treated her as his personal handbag” and now, with her two children gone, is “a lonely woman”.
He continued, “Dunjeven is a little village where everyone knows each other and everyone talks, and this woman had to put up with the side looks, the whispers, and the unfortunate remarks that others made in the street.
“Every time you go out into the street, you live in petrified fear that someone will point out what you have done, and that, in my submission, is real torture.”
It was also revealed that Southern had asked the housing manager to move her to Antrim or Limavady, even using a “locally elected representative” to support her case.
“She’s at the top of the housing department’s list,” he added, before insisting on her plea that the compensation issues and South’s mental health background were enough to allow a judge to issue a non-custodial sentence.
Sentencing for Southern was scheduled for Friday, but Judge Roseanne McCormick K.
.