A serial sex pest who threatened to publish intimate videos of a woman he met on Tinder has been sentenced to at least 13 months jail.
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Andrew Peter Swallow, a 30-year-old convicted sex offender from Kiama Downs, told the victim his actions would be “karma” coming back at her after she broke off their brief liaison earlier this year.
Court documents said the pair connected via Tinder in December and were “intimate” when they met in person in February.
During the encounter, Swallow filmed the woman performing a consensual sex act on him. She demanded he delete the video, which he did.
A few days later the woman rejected Swallow’s request for a dinner date, prompting Swallow to threaten to “forward the boys your vids (sic)”.
The woman told police she believed Swallow had somehow stored the video on his phone before erasing it.
Swallow contacted her again in March and July, each time threatening to release the video.
“You caused me unnecessary stress and drama, I told you karma would suck, was purely waiting for the right time,” he wrote at one stage.
The woman reported the incidents to police, who charged Swallow with stalking. He pleaded guilty on Thursday.
Documents tendered to the court revealed Swallow had a long history of “predatory behaviour” towards women and had previously been convicted of stalking two other Tinder dates.
Defence lawyer Caitlin Drabble said Swallow suffered from a number of mental health conditions including bipolar, depression and an inability to regulate his emotional response to “provocative stimuli”.
She confirmed Swallow had no video of the victim at the time he made the threats and had simply wanted to “one up” her after she created a public Facebook page about him that led to threatening phone calls and his house being “egged”.
Magistrate Peter Bugden sympathised with the victim, who he said must have been living in fear that her private moments may be about to become public.
He sentenced Swallow to a maximum jail term of 18 months and barred him from contacting the victim under the terms of an AVO.
With time served, Swallow will be eligible for release to parole in August next year.