Man first to be jailed under new crime of cyberflashing

A convicted sex offender has become the first person to be jailed for cyberflashing crimes under new laws, after he sent nonconsensual images of his genitals to two victims.

- HOLLY EVANS

Nicholas Hawkes, 39, was arrested after Essex Police received a report that a 15-year-old girl and a woman had been sent explicit images of his erect penis over iMessage and WhatsApp.

Following an investigation, he was charged and later pleaded guilty to two counts of sending a photograph or film of genitals to cause alarm or distress or humiliation. He has been jailed for 15 months. Southend Crown Court heard that Hawkes had sent the images from his father’s phone after asking to use it for a call from probation while he was living at his address. After taking the phone to a private area, he sent an iMessage picture to the teenager and a WhatsApp image to a woman, aged in her sixties.

The teenage girl was said to be left “overwhelmed and crying” by the image, with Hawkes making full admission to police officers upon his arrest. These offences formed “part of an established pattern of behaviour” given that he was already a registered sex offender after he was convicted and given a community order for sexual activity with a child and exposure last year.

Speaking in his defence, Barry Gilbert insisted Hawkes was “not a pervert” and had been a man of good character until 2020, when his first offending began. This came as a result of his ongoing PTSD and heavy cocaine use, which began after he was kidnapped and tortured in 2016. In a botched robbery, he was taken hostage by two men for 18 hours, and was stabbed and held for ransom. His attackers were jailed for 10 and eight years respectively.