THE motives of a Wordsley man who was jailed for posting intimate ‘revenge porn’ images of his ex-partner have ‘never been truly understood’, claim West Midlands Police.

Samuel Bishop, aged 29, was sent to prison for 40 weeks after pleading guilty to posting an explicit image of the victim on her Facebook profile.

Dudley Magistrates Court heard Bishop, of Hamilton Drive, had also sent the image – which had been taken more than three years ago – to eight different people including the victim’s friends, family, work colleagues and current partner.

The incident was first brought to the attention of West Midlands Police by Bishop’s former girlfriend. The pair split in September 2011 following a three-and a-half-year relationship.

Detective Constable Rob Brookes, investigating officer, said: “We carried out checks on the woman’s Facebook account and realised that that a different computer had been used to log-in to the woman’s profile.

“This quickly led us to Bishop who refused to comment when we interviewed him.

“As such, the motive for his actions, or his timing of the incident, have never been truly understood. I can only assume that he never got over the break up and in an act of revenge, decided to access her Facebook account and post the images.”

Bishop, who showed no emotion when he was jailed, had previously served eight weeks in jail for breaching a restraining order, given after a conviction for battery against the same woman in April 2013.

The court heard the victim was “sick to the stomach” and was “frightened” by Bishop because of “what he might do”.

Val Hart, prosecuting, said the victim woke up on the morning of May 24 to check her own phone and that of her current partner, who had received a Facebook message.

Miss Hart said: “She was horrified that her picture had been seen by anyone.

“The image was sent to about eight different people as a private message including new partner, friends, work colleagues and a family member - all were male.”

The victim deleted the intimate photograph, but later that day a close friend of her father’s sent her a message saying that the image had reappeared.

Miss Hart said the victim could not understand why Bishop had wanted to hurt her and that she had not done anything to hurt him.

Andrew Wakeman, defending, said his client was under the influence of alcohol when the incident took place and that it was at a time when his sister was ill and had recently come out of hospital.

Mr Wakeman said: “He has given great consideration to what he did and he struggles to understand why he did what he did.

“There has been an ongoing issue between the two and he clearly wanted to hurt her, of that there can be no question.

“He felt his life has not moved on and his former partner’s had.”

He said Bishop was seeking help for his ‘binge drinking’ and has been attending a support group to help cut alcohol out of his life altogether.

As he jailed Bishop – following more than an hour of Magistrates discussions, chairman of the bench, Mr Crew, said: “Posting photos of this as revenge will not be tolerated in this community.

“You have targeted the same victim for a long period of years. This is a breach of trust as the photograph was taken for private use and not to be used outside the relationship.

“There has been a damaging consequence of this image, causing the injured party long term trust issues. Your own family members have suffered.”

Mr Crew said Bishop had been given credit for his early guilty plea and that he has sought help for his drinking problem.

Bishop, who was sacked from his job as a warehouse man after he admitted the offence, is one of the first people to be jailed for posting ‘revenge porn’ online.