West Indies cricketer Lendl Simmons who breached the confidentiality of a woman he was having an extra-marital affair by showing sexual photographs to his cricket colleagues was ordered by a High Court judge in Port of Spain, Trinidad to pay her TT$150,000 (US$25,000) in compensation.
In a landmark ruling, Justice Frank Rampersad advised Therese Ho, 24, the former lover of Simmons who filed a breach of confidence lawsuit against him, “keep your sex lives in the bedroom and not on camera.”
The case was the first in Trinidad and Tobago, which does not have any legislation in place to address such issues.
In his 17-page judgement Justice Rampersad called for measures to be put in place to deal with such issues saying it was unfortunate “that as a society we have not been proactive and that we are burdened with so many archaic laws.”
Simmons was accused of distributing several intimate photographs of the 26-year-old accountant, a mother of two, when their brief relationship came to an end in 2013.
The evidence in the lawsuit was that the two were involved in a secret affair and during the relationship Ho took several photographs of herself via WhatsApp.
Simmons had also taken two photos of her while she was performing oral sex on him.
Ho’s attorneys contended that when the relationship came to an end, she contacted Simmons’ girlfriend and informed her of the relationship as she felt the woman had a right to know.
Following this, she complained that Simmons then distributed the photographs to the father of one of her two daughters and also his (Simmons) cricket colleagues.
Simmons, through his attorney argued that Ho was the one who first breached the confidentiality when she contacted his girlfriend (now his wife) and in addition to informing her of the relationship, also showed her some of the photographs.
In his defense Simmons said he took the photographs and held on to them as he did not trust her and wanted to hold it over her head.
The judge said the court was alarmed by the manner in which Simmons viewed the woman as a sexual object based on certain statements contained in some of his WhatsApp messages.
