A MAN who threatened to post naked pictures of his wife online if she didn’t pay him £500 has been jailed.

Paul Brand, of Broughton Road, Banbury, had already admitted one count of blackmail.

The 38-year old showed no emotion as he was jailed at Oxford Crown Court yesterday for subjecting his then-partner to what a court judge described as ‘humiliation’ and ‘degradation’ for the demand.

During the sentencing hearing prosecutor Alan Blake said that Brand had taken photos of his wife while at a nudist beach in the years prior to their relationship souring.

After a row of money he went on to send his wife text messages in April this year, Mr Blake said, telling her ‘if she wanted him homeless on the streets the result of that would be the sharing of these photos on social media sites'.

Brand then sent her the images he threatened to put online to seemingly back up his threat, the court heard, after she contacted police about the blackmail.

The photos, Brand told his wife, would only be deleted if she agreed to pay him a total of £500, which he suspected she had taken from him previously.

Brand was subsequently arrested and a number of electronic devices seized, which police are continuing to examine for the images, the court heard.

Before the blackmail prosecutors told the court that Brand had been made subject to an earlier suspended sentence after he sent message to the same woman reading ‘if you don’t come home soon I will kill you and the kids’ and making a series of threats.

Brand later went on to admit the single charge ahead of his sentencing yesterday.

In mitigation, Imran Majid said that his client ‘never had any intention’ of putting the images online despite his threat and said that the sum demanded of his wife was relatively small.

He said: “It was really just to get her attention and to get the money he believed she had taken from him.

“We are not talking about a vast amount of money. We are not talking about thousands or 10s of thousands of pounds, we are talking about £500.”

He added that jail time would be particularly hard for him as he suffered from a skin condition affecting his sweat glands.

Sentencing, Judge Peter Ross said: “This has had a considerable adverse effect on your estranged wife causing her mental anguish and physical difficulties.

“Whilst the amount of money objectively was relatively small it was not one that she was readily able to raise and you would know that.

“She was faced with an impossible demand and the consequences of which for her refusal to comply were severe indeed involving humiliation and degradation.”

Brand was jailed for two years and given a further six weeks to run consecutively for being in breach of a suspended sentence at the time of the offence. He must also pay a victim surcharge.