Designer jailed for threat to circulate woman's nude photos, fined $23k for obscene video films

Mohamed Hirwandie Mohd Hashim threatened to circulate the woman's photographs online if she made any attempt to "block" him as a friend on the Facebook application. PHOTO: ST FILE

SINGAPORE - A designer threatened to post nude photographs of a woman he befriended online, and had never met, when she ended all contact and ignored him, a district court heard.

About seven months later, Mohamed Hirwandie Mohd Hashim stumbled on the 21-year-old's online profile on Facebook.

The 30-year-old created a Facebook account under his previous moniker John Teo, and tried to add the victim as a friend.

When she did not accept his request, he persisted and continued to badger her in a bid to get her to meet him.

On Nov 11, 2014, he forwarded a screenshot of her nude photographs to her in a bid to underscore the gravity of his threats.

He threatened to circulate her photographs online if she made any attempt to "block" him as a friend on the Facebook application.

When she continued to ignore him, he further threatened to circulate her nude photographs among her family, friends, Institute of Technical Education and online sex forums, demanding that she provide sexual favours to him in exchange for deleting her nude photographs.

After repeated threats, she eventually arranged to meet him on Dec 14 that year. He had no clue that she had informed the police of their arrangement to meet and was arrested.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Eunice Lau said that after Hirwandie obtained nude photographs of women on an online website focusing on Singapore, he would contact them on Facebook under the moniker of John Teo.

He would then send them their nude photographs and threaten to disseminate them to their friends and/or family members if they did not comply with his demands for sex.

Investigation revealed he had done this to several women.

After "befriending" the victim this way, the court heard they exchanged nude photographs over WhatsApp between February and March 2014.

From late March 2014, she decided not to contact him and he threatened to post her nude photographs. She then changed her mobile number to avoid him.

On Tuesday (April 4), Hirwandie was jailed for four months for criminal intimidation. He was fined $23,000 for having obscene video films at his Jalan Kayu flat on Dec 16 , 2014.

Three other charges were taken into consideration in sentencing.

Hirwandie, who is married with two young children, could have been jailed for up to two years and/or fined for criminal intimidation.

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