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A British Columbia man wins $35,000 in damages after his ex-girlfriend repeatedly posted intimate images of him online in a campaign to harass and torment him. The tribunal found she breached a protection order 14 times.
A British Columbia man has been awarded $35,000 in damages after his ex-girlfriend posted intimate images of him on social media in a targeted campaign to harass and torment him.
The Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT) decision, issued last month, involved a couple anonymized as BW and SS, who had been in a relationship for four years before breaking up. The couple had been together for four years before their breakup. After the relationship ended, SS began harassing BW by posting intimate images of him on various social media accounts that were fake and meant to impersonate him or people he knew.
In a previous related dispute, tribunal member Jeffrey Drozdiak found eight of the images met the definition of intimate, all showing the man's face and some showing his genitals. Drozdiak issued a protection order requiring SS to destroy all the images and make every reasonable effort to make them unavailable to others.
Novel Interpretation of Intimate Image Claims
However, Drozdiak later found that the respondent continued sharing the images and breached the protection order 14 times between March and September of this year. The tribunal member said the claim raises a novel issue about how the Limitation Act applies to images posted online. Normally, applicants to the CRT, including for intimate images-related damages, must make their claims within two years of an incident.
In this case, one of the images the man claimed damages for was discovered by him in January 2024, and he made the claim in April 2026, meaning that image would be excluded from the decision. However, he provided proof that the image was still on the internet as of December 2025.
Drozdiak decided that the statute of limitations for intimate images cases should work like a nuisance claim, where an applicant can prove they suffered fresh damage from a continuing problem, or that the other party's actions created a new nuisance each day. The decision reads that an image shared online creates fresh damage every day it remains online. Each day, the limitation period starts again until the image is taken down.
However, an applicant can only claim damages for the two-year period immediately before they started their claim. In intimate images cases, the applicant does not need to provide evidence they suffered harm, because without consent, it is well known that sharing a person's intimate images is harmful.
Tribunal Cites Significant Harm To Victim
In addition, BC's Intimate Images Protection Act makes sharing such images illegal and actionable without proof of damage. Discussing the harm BW suffered specifically, Drozdiak accepted his submission that the spreading of the pictures is ruining his life and his business. BW also said SS sent two images to his current partner and told them she will never stop, and her goal was to break them up and never let another woman get close to him.
The man also told the tribunal his ex left laughing reactions on all the posts on his business social media using a fake account that had a naked image of him as the profile picture. The decision reads that the respondent's ongoing conduct demonstrates that she has no concerns about how her actions affect the applicant. Her motivation appears to be revenge for the applicant ending the relationship. The tribunal found this ongoing, intentional conduct favours a significant damages award.
Drozdiak also considered the respondent's breach of the protection order and her evading of being served CRT disputes aggravating factors, with the applicant saying she is treating this process as a joke. The applicant asked for $35,000, and the tribunal granted it, broken down as $30,000 in compensatory damages and $5,000 in aggravated damages. SS must also pay BW $444.20 to compensate him for hiring a process server.
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CTVToronto:This story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
BC Man Intimate Images Civil Resolution Tribunal Jeffrey Drozdiak Protection Order Damages Award Social Media British Columbia Harassment Damages
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