Jail for city worker who posted pics on porn site

A City worker who tried to destroy an intern after she rebuffed his advances by posting pictures of her on a porn website has been jailed for 16 weeks.

Davide Buccheri, 25, was working for leading investment management company M&G as a fund manager’s assistant when he targeted Durham University graduate Rebecca Baker.

The Italian made a series of ‘unwanted romantic advances’ when Ms Baker, 22, joined the firm as an intern in September 2016.

Buccheri explained that he took an interest in all of the interns starting at M&G and looked them up on LinkedIn before ‘stalking’ Ms Baker on Facebook.

He joked to a friend: ‘I stalked her and I only stalk people I like a lot.’

Buccheri invited her for coffee but Ms Baker hesitated as she felt uncomfortable before deciding to go.

He then asked for her mobile phone number, but refused to give him it out to him, before sending her messages on the internal email system.

Buccheri then uploaded pictures of Ms Baker from her social media accounts and put them on the porn site motherless.com.

In an impact statement read to the court the victim said that she found the whole experience so disconcerting that she has sought psychiatric help.

Buccheri was jailed for 16 weeks and pay £5,000 in compensation to his victim at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today (tues).

Prosecutor Aimee Emby had described it as a ‘sustained campaign of harassment against a young woman beginning her career in the financial services industry,

‘Not only did Buccheri’s actions cause the victim considerable distress and anxiety, his denial of guilt forced her to relive her ordeal.

‘I hope this conviction provides the victim with some measure of comfort and gives other victim of harassment the confidence to come forward.’

Ms Emby said the Italian had ‘obsessive crush, one that ended in rejection for Mr Buccheri damaging his pride and driving his desire to cause Ms Baker harassment, alarm or distress’.

Buccheri used the pseudonym ‘Flying Gerbil’ to post pictures of his colleague alongside images of women of similar build on the site, the court heard.

Motherless.com describes itself as ‘a moral free file host where anything legal is hosted forever.’

Buccheri then reported Baker to the Human Resources department to embarrass her, the court heard.

The Italian, from Bologna, claimed he had been conducting an investigation for the good of M&G.

Giving evidence Ms Baker said she was left ‘devastated’ by Buccheri’s campaign.

‘At first the messages were friendly, and I felt obliged to keep it that way,’ she said.

‘I felt bad for him in that I did not have his interest. There had been email exchanges when I had made it quite clear that I wanted to maintain a professional relationship.

‘I would say that someone with a little emotional intelligence would see that someone who tried to postpone the coffee had some reservations

‘He sent me a long gushy email. He gave me his mobile number despite me not giving him mine. I felt uncomfortable.’

When Ms Baker was first told about the fake porn images on Motherless.com, she said she was left ‘devastated and embarrassed.’

District judge Richard Blake had found Buccheri guilty of harassment after a trial which ended last week.

Passing sentence he told the Italian: ‘You were obsessed with this young woman.

‘You were overwhelmed by her rejection of you and then you set about to destroy her.

‘You conducted a quite wicked, calculated campaign against this young woman.

‘It is shameful.’

The judge likened Buccheri’s behaviour to a ’21st Century sort of revenge’ by a tech-savvy young man.

‘I was sure that you, having been spurned by her in a very professional and gentle and understanding way set about on a course of revenge against her,’ he said.

‘This is a 21st centre sort of revenge.

‘You placed her images on those websites, you thereafter alerted M&G bosses in order to discredit her.

‘This was all about you and the fact that you had not come to terms with the fact that this young woman had rejected you.

‘Ms Baker is going to to live forever with the fear that someone will Google her name and some ghastly website will come up and she will be reminded of the offences that you invoked.’

The judge said he recognised that it was a tragedy for Buccheri also, adding: ‘I am sure this is not how your parents expected your future to go.

‘You are a young man, you clearly have intellect and the consequences of this conduct has destroyed your careet.’

The court heard Ms Baker had succeeded so well in her placement with the firm she was offered a role following her graduation.

‘Before she took up that post, she was called to the HR department of that company and was told of evidence which had come to their attention that she had featured on pornographic websites,’ the judge said.

‘She knew nothing of these images.

‘At the start of her career, an intelligent woman leaving university with every reason to be excited about the future suddenly found herself confronted with these ghastly images and the suggestion that rather than being the person she presented herself as to the company during her interview, there was a much darker side.’

He continued: ‘She is going to have to live the rest of her professional life with the sniggers by the water cooler or whispers when she goes by.

‘She doesn’t deserve that.

‘This young woman did absolutely nothing to bring about your disgusting behaviour.

‘I hope anybody that knows her or works with her gives her the privacy of not acknowledging this case and allow this young woman to go on with her career.’

Buccheri, the son of a railway engineer was earning £44,000 a year with a juicy bonus of £66,000 in 2016, the court heard.

The court heard he was dismissed from his role at M&G following what happened and has since returned home where he is yet to find work.

Emily Baxter, defending, said Buccheri claimed to have only £60 left in his bank account after spending ‘far too lavishly’ while he was in employment and losing his job.

She said his behaviour was as an ‘infatuation that went too far’ where he was ‘creating this online fantasy’.

‘It is clear that he developed a complete infatuation with her, but he did not have the social skills to know what to do with that or the thinking skills to assess the consequences of his actions or the skills to deal with what he then felt when she politely turned him down,’ she said.

She said he was ‘completely besotted’ with her and explained: ‘Perhaps now we are seeing the beginnings of remorse.’

Buccheri was jailed for 16 weeks and was ordered to pay Ms Baker £5,000 in compensation.

He was also made subject of a restraining order against Ms Baker and any member of her family until further order.

Buccheri must also pay prosecution costs of £930.

His LinkedIn profile states that he worked for M&G after graduating from a 12-month rotational programme.

M&G is an investment company managing the long-term savings of millions of people across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

According to their website, customers’ assets currently under their management total £281.5bn as of June 2017.

Buccheri denied but was convicted of one count of harassment without violence.