A City worker posted fake pornographic images of an intern online after she rebuffed his sexual advances.
Davide Buccheri, 25, was working for investment management company M&G as a fund manager's assistant when he targeted 22-year-old graduate Rebecca Baker.
The Italian saved images of Ms Baker from her social media accounts. He then edited her face onto pornographic images before re-uploading them to the web.
Buccheri then drew bosses' attention to the revealing images in an attempt to embarrass and discredit the young intern. His twisted campaign of harassment against Ms Baker went on between September 2016 and May 2017.
The defence case, which was thoroughly rejected by the court, was that Buccheri stumbled across the images during research into Ms Baker's past.
Buccheri, shown in the image below, was found guilty of one charge of harassment without violence during his recent trial at Westminster Magistrates' Court.
The court heard how Buccheri made a series of unwanted sexual advances towards Ms Baker when she joined the firm in September 2016.
Giving evidence, Buccheri explained that he took an interest in all new interns and looked them up on social media. However, it quickly became apparent that Ms Baker had no interest at all in Buccheri's advances.
What followed, according to prosecutor Aimee Emby, was an insidious campaign against Ms Baker.
Ms Emby said Buccheri had an "obsessive crush that ended in rejection for Mr Buccheri, damaging his pride and driving his desire to cause Ms Baker harassment, alarm or distress".
Buccheri used the pseudonym ‘Flying Gerbil’ to post pictures of his colleague on the porn site before reporting her to Human Resources to embarrass her, the court heard.
On finding Buccheri guilty, District Judge Richard Blake said: "You were obsessed with this young woman.
"You were overwhelmed by her rejection of you and then you set about to destroy her."
The Judge indicated that a custodial sentence was and added: "You conducted a quite wicked, calculated campaign against this young woman. It is shameful."
Buccheri was remanded in custody to be sentenced on 1st May 2018.
The Judge imposed a restraining order barring Buccheri from contacting Ms Baker or any other employees at M&G and ordered the forfeiture of the laptop and mobile seized during the investigation.
No comments:
Post a Comment