An executive at a global insurance and risk management firm has been dismissed, and criminally charged, following complaints that he was taking compromising pictures of his colleagues and uploading them to a porn site. A Sunday Times report says Neil Ashcroft is the former business development executive at Marsh Africa, the local branch of the firm.

He appeared last week in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on a charge of crimen injuria. Ashcroft allegedly invited female colleagues to his office, and using the camera on his phone, attempt to take up-skirt images. He allegedly put these on the porn site xhamster.com.

According to Sandton police spokesperson Captain Granville Meyer, one of the women’s colleagues discovered the photos. He confirmed the arrest and the court appearance. Meyer said there was only one complainant in the criminal matter, but a spokesperson for the insurance company said many people had been affected by Ashcroft’s alleged conduct.

Verlie Oosthuizen, a partner at Shepstone & Wylie attorneys and an expert on social media law, said a charge of crimen injuria was the most effective remedy in such cases.

‘If there are a number of images that a perpetrator posted of one particular person on different occasions – in other words, there is a pattern of harassment – then there could be grounds for the person to obtain a protection from harassment order from the Magistrate’s Court where they could be ordered to remove the pictures and also stopped from harassing the victim in future,’ she said.

‘Unfortunately, examples such as the one described (Ashcroft’s case) are becoming all too common in the digital age and there is tremendous scope to invade the privacy of people egregiously with the technology available.’

Full Sunday Times report (subscription needed)