A man will be sentenced next year after he threatened to publish intimate images of a woman online and then sent her hundreds of degrading and abusive emails, described by a judge as “demeaning not only to this woman but to all women in general “.

The court heard that Craig Coyle, 37, and the woman had been in a relationship for several months, having met on the dating site Tinder in December 2022. They began their relationship early the following year and broke up in September 2023.

Coyle, of Holly Court, Ballybrack, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to threatening to publish intimate images of the woman without her consent on September 23, 2023.

He also pleaded guilty to harassment between September 2023 and December 2023 and two counts of trespassing at the woman’s home on December 23, 2023 and January 19, 2024. He has no previous convictions.

The offense falls under legislation known as the Coco Act, which makes it a crime to share or threaten to share intimate images without consent. Penalties include fines and/or up to seven years in prison.

Judge Pauline Codd read a series of emails Coyle sent to the woman, including one which the prosecution said was too explicit to be read into the record.

Sarah Connolly BL, prosecuting, told the court that the woman felt particularly threatened by the email because it referred to a disclosure she had made to Coyle that she had previously been the victim of a serious sexual assault. She felt that he was purposely trying to scare her.

Judge Codd noted that the woman had to buy a security alarm after she caught Coyle outside her home on a winter’s evening in 2023.

“He was walking around her house in the early hours of the morning,” the judge commented, before she described Coyle’s behavior as “appalling”.

She said his emails were “demeaning, not just to this woman, but to women in general”, saying they were “pornographic in nature”. She said his unwanted communication with the woman “portrays an appalling attitude”.

Garda Aaron Bradshaw said the woman blocked Coyle on a social media app in September 2023 following a nasty message from him, but he then started messaging her on the payment app Revolut, claiming he owed her money .

She accepted that she owed him €200 and said she would pay him back a few days later when she was next paid. He then sent her a message via Revolut and threatened to send intimate images of her to her ex-husband.

The woman blocked Coyle on Revolut as soon as she paid the money she owed, but he then started emailing her, sending her hundreds of abusive and degrading emails over the following months.

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The woman read her victim impact statement in the file and said she had gone from someone who didn’t set her alarm at night to someone who “has a house alarm and cameras on 24/7”.

She said her mental health had deteriorated because of Coyle’s “depraved, degrading and disgusting” messages. “No one has ever spoken to me with this level of hate,” she said.

“If he had physically hurt me, people would understand the depth of my fear. I wonder if my children would be better off if I were dead,” she concluded.

Judge Codd adjourned the case until next February 17, pending an updated report from a psychologist who recently diagnosed the man as having an emotionally unstable personality disorder.