Blackmailer of 'global pop star' gets seven-year sentence

[General Veers]

Blackmailer of 'global pop star' gets seven-year sentence

An unemployed man who tried to extort thousands of pounds from an international pop star in exchange for 'highly sensitive' photographs stolen from her home has been handed a seven-year sentence.

By Victoria Ward
Published: 6:58PM BST 29 Oct 2010

Sebastian Bennett, 24, laughed in the dock as he was ordered to serve half of the sentence in prison and half in the community after conducting a 'highly sophisticated' and calculating campaign that left the musician feeling violated and vulnerable. The fitness fanatic called himself Dave64 and Dave Smith during his 6 week attempt to extort £54,000 for the 27 images found on the stolen laptop.

The ordeal began last November when the celebrity, who can not be named for legal reason, lost her house keys and was subsequently burgled. Six weeks later, hand-delivered letters and emails began to arrive, in which Bennett said he had found the photographs and intended to sell them to the media. He claimed that the digital photographs were worth £2,000 each and offered to sell them to the star for a "knock-down" price of £20,000 to prevent them surfacing in the press.

Bennett, who has previous convictions for shoplifting and affray, was convicted of handling stolen goods and blackmail by a jury on Monday. Passing sentence at Isleworth Crown Court, Judge Robert Winstanley described his initial demand for cash, in which he claimed to have been offered money for the pictures from the papers, as 'particularly sickening'.

He noted the 'apparent concern' for her career was soon abandoned as he made a serious of very nasty threats to sell the pictures publicly. The judge said: 'Blackmail is an ugly and vicious crime, this is a cowardly crime and cowardly is a description of your behaviour as you turned this way and that as you tried to avoid responsibility for your wicked behaviour'.

The well-known star issued a statement to the court in which she said the thought of her private information being exposed 'was absolutely awful'. She said Bennett's two visits to her London home to deliver the money were a 'terrible invasion' of her private space that had left her 'very frightened'. The court was told that the photographs contained nothing inproper or of a sexual nature.

 

[Guan Ping]

Blackmailer who threatened to go public with 'embarrassing' photos of international celebrity is jailed for seven years

By Neil Sears
Last updated at 12:46 AM on 30th October 2010

A blackmailer who left his pop star victim terrified by threatening to sell ‘embarrassing’ photographs rocked with laughter as he was yesterday jailed for seven years. Unemployed Sebastian Bennett got hold of 27 ‘very sensitive’ photographs of the internationally famous celebrity just a few hours after two laptops were stolen from her home in a burglary. He hand-delivered blackmail letters to her home and sent emails to her lawyers demanding up to £54,000 for the pictures. If she did not pay up, he said, he would sell them to newspapers.

Cowardly: Sebastian Bennett, pictured here arriving at court, laughed as he was jailed.

After the plot had continued for some six weeks, an undercover police operation caught Bennett, 24, with the pictures on a computer and a blackmail letter on his coffee table. A jury earlier this week convicted him of blackmail and handling stolen goods. Yesterday he shook with silent laughter as he was jailed.

The celebrity, meanwhile, who cannot be named for legal reasons, went to some pains to inform the public that there was ‘nothing sexual’ or ‘improper’ about the photographs. She has been identified only by the pseudonym ‘Nicola Smith’ and police have declined to discuss the case outside court, even refusing, unusually, to issue a custody photograph of the villain.

Judge Robert Winstanley, speaking at Isleworth Crown Court in West London before he sentenced Bennett, suggested only that the photographs featured what might be seen as ‘some kind of embarrassing behaviour’. The celebrity was burgled last November but it was not until January that the first blackmail letter was hand-delivered to her home. In March police raided Bennett’s flat in West London, and found a haul of damning evidence.

Prosecutor Alex Lewis said the blackmailer had convictions for shoplifting, affray, and for breaching a two-year suspended sentence for the affray by failing to complete community service. Miss Lewis then went on: ‘Miss Smith wants it to be known that there was nothing improper in those photographs. They did not feature any person other than Miss Smith, and contained no sexual content whatsoever.’

In a victim impact statement, the star said of the blackmail plot: ‘I felt extremely violated. The thought that he would disclose my private information was absolutely awful.’ Judge Winstanley told Bennett, who was cleared of carrying out the burglary, that his first demand ‘was made in a particularly sickening way’ by saying he ‘didn’t want to damage Miss Smith’s career’. The judge added that blackmail was ‘an ugly vicious crime’ and Bennett had behaved like a coward.

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