Luton man with a history of beating women jailed for revenge porn and harassment against partner

A jealous thug from Luton has been jailed after sending nude pictures of his ex-partner to her family and setting up a fake online dating profile.
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Calvin Brathwaite, 29, of Malvern Road, Luton, appeared sobbing with his head in his hands at Luton Crown Court yesterday for sentencing over the two month harassment campaign.

Jailing him for 15 months, Recorder David Mayall said: “Some of these messages were absolutely disgusting... this was a horrendous course of conduct.”

The court heard that the victim ended their 18-month relationship in August 2018, describing Brathwaite as “controlling and abusive”.

Shortly afterwards, he began to bombard her with around 100 WhatsApp messages, including threats to kill and other abuse.

Prosecutor Max Hardy said: “On November 8, she started receiving messages from strangers via WhatsApp referring to the Plenty of Fish dating application.

“She was sent screen shots of a Plenty of Fish profile which contained her mobile telephone number in the ‘About Me’ section. It was not created with her knowledge or consent.”

Brathwaite also sent messages to the victim’s mum and sister’s Facebook accounts, which they chose not to look at.

The victim examined the messages, and found one to her mother repeating his earlier threats. Brathwaite had also sent 13 naked images of her to her mother and 11 images to her sister.

Mr Hardy added: “He was arrested on December 20 last year. He became upset during the course of the interview, he admitted sending the messages and confirmed he did not take the break-up well. He said he had been drunk and took cannabis.

“He accepted making threats to kill her but said he had no intention of carrying out these threats.”

The victim said that she had to change her mobile phone number, the images were distressing and she worried about what he would do if he saw her.

The court was told Brathwaite had 17 convictions for 31 offences, including beatings against two women, as well as sharing pictures of a 16-year-old ex-partner on Twitter.

The first of the two attacks was against an ex-partner in 2013. In an act of jealousy, Brathwaite had grabbed the woman by the hair, pushed her against a wardrobe and slapped her in the face.

The second attack happened in 2015 to a woman living in Folkestone, who had given Brathwaite her number and then blocked him. After spotting her in the street and trying to start up a conversation, her punched her in the arm, grabbed her phone and threw it to the ground.

He was convicted last year of a historic offence of posting indecent pictures of a 16-year-old girl on his Twitter account in 2014.

The Probation Service stated there was “nothing they could do” to rehabilitate Brathwaite, who had already been forced to undertake ‘Thinking Skills’ and ‘Better Relationships’ courses after his convictions in the past.

The 15-month sentence comprised 12 months for Brathwaite’s harassment campaign, as well as three month activation of a suspended sentence.

PC Connor MacKay, who investigated the case, said: “Brathwaite carried out this disgusting campaign of intimidation against the victim for a number of months. He offered no explanation for his unacceptable behaviour, apart from not dealing well with the break-up.

“I would like to commend the victim as she has been extremely brave in coming forward and co-operating with us during the investigation.

“Hopefully this case will encourage any other victims of hidden harassment to come forward. Our force remains dedicated to tackling online harassment and ‘revenge porn’ offences.

“We will treat your report seriously and no one should suffer this kind of distress alone.”