A woman has told of the horror of discovering a private sex video had been posted worldwide on the internet.

It was made when she was a teenager and she believed that after the relationship ended it would be forgotten.

But then a male friend sent her a message saying he had seen it on the internet.

The woman told a judge at Canterbury Crown Court: “I was horrified to find a message from one of my closest friends saying he had come across disgusting photos and videos of me online.

“I was so terrified of what I had seen that I broke down in the middle of work in front of multiple colleagues.

“To know that one of my oldest friends had seen me in this light made me hate myself more than I already did... I was terrified that more of my friends and family would see them.”

Now the man who posted the images, Aaron Dalton, 27, has been convicted of controlling and coercive behaviour and distributing sex images of a child.

He had denied them and was acquitted of a third charge.

Dalton, of Dryden Close, Dover, was given an 18-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months and ordered to do 300 hours of unpaid work.

Judge Heather Norton told him: “I am concerned about your lack of insight into how your behaviour impacted on your victim.

“These images have been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people... as once they are on the internet they are always out there.”

In a victim impact statement, read by Prosecutor Vivian Walters, the woman revealed: “Over the months of the investigation, I and my friends were finding more and more content on multiple sites, all containing me in a disturbing manner.

“All these videos and photo galleries may have had me under an alias but contained my face.

“My face and my body has (sic) been broadcast to hundreds of thousands of people across the world without my consent.

“I feel like everyone knows my face...I have dreams almost every night about the vile things I have been put through. I wake up crying and sweating" - the woman to court

“I don’t feel like I can go to my local shop or talk to my friends without them silently judging me.

“I feel like everyone knows my face... I have dreams almost every night about the vile things I have been put through. I wake up crying and sweating.”

The jury heard how Dalton also controlled a former girlfriend, taking her bank card and giving her small amounts of money to spend.

The victim said she was just allowed £5 to buy her food for work and Dalton also controlled who she saw and where she went.