3/6/23, 9:54 AM FGX v Gaunt [2023] EWHC 419 (KB) (27 February 2023) 10. The Claimant further discovered the Defendant had uploaded the images onto a pornographic website, alongside a photograph of her face so she could be recognised. She located screenshots of payment platform websites, from which she inferred that the Defendant had made money from uploading the images. 11. On 10th September 2020, the Defendant was convicted of voyeurism and other sexual offences. He received a two-year suspended sentence and was ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register for ten years. 12. In a statement for the criminal proceedings, the Claimant said: "I found out afterwards that he had been filming me for at least three minutes whilst pretending that he was half asleep. When I was going through his hard drives, I saw that he had taken screen shots of me cleaning the bathroom naked and uploaded these images to what seemed like some pornographic website. He took a photo of me from Facebook so you could see my face clearly and placed that image next to all my naked images. Next to the uploaded naked photos, it had said something like 'dirty sister caught naked' or something to that effect. This was such an awful betrayal of someone that was pretending to love and care for me. Someone that I had trusted, had taken my most intimate moments and gleefully added this to sick websites and relished at his perverted enjoyment of sharing this with thousands of strangers without my knowledge. […] I kept agonizing as to what else he had recorded of me [.] […] What else could he have uploaded onto these sick websites of me […]?" The proceedings 13. The Claimant issued proceedings on 17th December 2020. The Particulars of Claim record that the Defendant owed the Claimant an obligation of trust and confidence in relation to intimate and personal matters and information coming into his possession as a result of their relationship. The images of the Claimant constituted confidential and private information belonging to the Claimant. The Claimant had a reasonable expectation that her time at the Defendant's home would remain confidential and private due to the intimate nature of the relationship and/or the circumstances in which she came to be in the Defendant's home. The distribution of the images constituted a breach of his obligations of trust and confidence owed to her. The films and photographs constituted personal and confidential information which the Defendant misused by storing them and/or distributing them to another or others. 14. There was no acknowledgment of service or defence served by the Defendant. The Claimant obtained judgment in default in relation to liability on 3rd June 2021. The Defendant attended a costs and case management conference on 18th October 2021 but subsequently did not comply with any of the directions. 15. The hearing for the assessment of damages was listed for 17th January 2022. The Defendant was not represented and did not appear at the start of the hearing, whereupon Counsel for the Claimant made an application that the Court should exercise its discretion under Civil Procedure Rule 39.3 to proceed in the Defendant's absence. 16. I was satisfied that it was right to proceed for the following reasons: (i) The trial bundle contains a number of letters sent by the Claimant's solicitors to the Defendant throughout the litigation, informing him of the hearing dates; his right to be present for the purposes of cross-examination and submissions, and his right to be legally represented; (ii) The Defendant attended the case management hearing on 18 October 2021 so is clearly aware of the proceedings; and (iii) Counsel explained that the trial bundle was sent to the Defendant the week before the trial by recorded delivery and was signed for by the Defendant. This would have provided a timely reminder of the hearing https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2023/419.html&query=(defamation) 3/13