WARNING: This story contains details of intimate partner violence and may affect those who have experienced it or know someone who has.
Natalie Brown went looking for a recipe on the Food Network one day. But another website starting with “F” immediately popped up – Fetlife, a Canadian social networking site for people interested in fetishism – and on it she found a video she didn't know existed of her engaging in sexual acts .
“I was so humiliated. I felt stupid, I felt ashamed, I felt scared,” Brown said recently during an interview in her Halifax apartment.
Brown, 39, said she later learned her partner had taken the video while blindfolded – at his request – and then shared it on Fetlife.
Brown's former partner, Conor Dolan, was charged in April 2024 with voyeurism and distributing intimate images without consent. He initially pleaded not guilty in Dartmouth provincial court.
WATCH | Natalie Brown on the moment she discovered a video of her naked online:
Ultimately, the prosecutor dropped the voyeurism charge in exchange for a guilty plea to the distribution charge, avoiding Brown having to testify in a trial. On January 6, Dolan was given a four-month suspended sentence, known as house arrest, on the joint advice of the Crown and defense. He will have a criminal record.
Encouraged by the conviction and motivated by a recent wave of murders in Nova Scotia — police say six women have been killed by their partners in the past three months as a result of intimate partner violence — Brown, 39, asked the court to commute the sentence lift. publication ban to protect her identity so she could raise awareness about intimate partner violence.
She also wants people to know the challenges she faced when removing the intimate images of herself from the internet.
Conor Dolan, right, awaits his sentence outside a courtroom in Dartmouth, N.S. He pleaded guilty to distributing intimate images without consent.
Conor Dolan, right, awaits his sentence outside a courtroom in Dartmouth, N.S. He pleaded guilty to distributing intimate images without consent. (Cris Monetta/CBC)
Crown attorney Paul Niefer, who prosecuted the case against Dolan, said in an interview that incarceration is typically reserved for cases involving “revenge porn,” where someone shares the images with the intent to harm the victim.
“In this case, we didn't have that factor,” he said.
Dolan, who has no previous record, declined an interview request, but when asked by the court if he would like to say anything, he said he was “deeply sorry.”
'A huge loss of privacy'
As he handed down the sentence, Judge Tim Daley told Dolan, 43, that if the case had gone to trial, he might have faced jail time.
“This was an act of online sexual abuse of intimate partners. There is no doubt about it. It represented a tremendous loss of privacy,” Daley said.
According to an agreed statement of facts in court, Brown's face and upper body were not visible in the 12-second video, but her lower body was completely nude. The video was taken in the home they shared and Dolan was seen holding her dog in the profile photo on the account. Her voice is also audible. The judge said she was recognizable.
WATCH | Natalie Brown asked a judge to lift a publication ban protecting her identity:
The statement said Fetlife claims to have millions of members, but exact figures are not available. It said the video was posted a fortnight before Brown discovered it in September 2019, but was online and visible to the public for four years.
In 2019, Dolan told Brown that he had deleted the video, but he had actually just deactivated it.
The statement said he told her he posted the video to demonstrate his skills at attracting sexual partners and that it was “not about her.”
He also told her he had mental health issues, including a “porn/sex addiction.” He attended therapy sessions for several months and she attended some sessions with him, in an attempt to continue their relationship.
The relationship eventually ended amicably in December 2019, and the couple continued to share custody of their dog.
Shocked when I found the video online
Four years later, at the suggestion of a friend, Brown checked the website and was shocked to discover that the video was still there.
The agreed statement of facts stated that Fetlife's administrative logs show that Dolan reactivated his account five months after Brown discovered it, although he had not used it since the reactivation and, the statement said, eventually closed it on 28 January 2024.
Brown sobbed as she read her victim impact statement aloud in the courtroom. Because the website can match people by location, she worried that her friends, colleagues and neighbors might have seen the video.
“The idea that someone could reduce my body, my autonomy, my dignity, my humanity to something for their consumption without my consent is unbearable.”
Dolan sat with his eyes downcast.
“That was an extraordinary statement that you read here today, from an extraordinary woman, who demonstrated extraordinary strength and resilience,” the judge said.
Brown said the judge made her feel like she was heard.
Natalie Brown says the words of a Nova Scotia judge who validated her experiences and feelings after her intimate images were shared online without her consent helped her immensely.
Brown says the words of a Nova Scotia judge who validated her experiences and feelings after her intimate images were shared online without her consent helped her immensely. (Cris Monetta/CBC)
“To finally get to that point and have a judge validate everything I went through and call it what it was helped me a lot,” she said in the interview.
As soon as she discovered the video in 2019, Brown began trying to get Fetlife to remove it from its servers. She said the site told her the video could not be removed because it belonged to Dolan and could not verify that she was the person in the video.
WATCH | About her experience with a form of intimate partner violence:
The CyberSCAN unit intervenes to have the video removed
Brown eventually contacted Nova Scotia's CyberSCAN unit, which operates under the provincial Intimate Images and Cyber Protection Act. The unit, which has been in existence since 2013 and handles an average of 200 cases per year, can help remove images, which is what happened in this case.
Fetlife did not respond to questions from CBC News about its policies.
Brown said she is speaking out because there remains a stigma around intimate partner violence that needs to be removed for people to feel like they can come forward without judgment.
She also wants to raise awareness about the difficulties she faced accessing resources and navigating the legal system.
She said waiting lists for counseling are too long and more funding is needed.
Emma Arnold, a lawyer who works for the nonprofit law firm People's Advocacy and Transformational Hub, which works to improve access to justice, says her firm is seeing more and more people affected by domestic violence.
Emma Arnold, a lawyer who works for the non-profit law firm People's Advocacy and Transformational Hub, says more and more people are suffering from domestic violence. (Cris Monetta/CBC)
Emma Arnold, an attorney who works for the nonprofit law firm People's Advocacy and Transformational Hub in Dartmouth, which offers pro bono and low bono services to improve access to justice, said her firm is seeing increasing numbers of people affected by domestic conflicts. violence.
She applauds Brown's advocacy.
“So many people don't know that the harm they've experienced is actually illegal.”
Brown wants people to know that while the fight for justice can be difficult, it is worth it.
“Every time I was scared, I thought, 'You're not doing this just for you,'” she said. “You do this for every woman who should be ashamed.”
Support is available for anyone experiencing family or partner violence crisis lines and local support services. If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety or the safety of others around you, call 911.
