It appears that 21-year old Philip Nourse began his campaign of harassment after the woman ended their nine-month relationship. He persuaded two of his friends, both employees of mobile phone operator O2, to intercept the woman's SMS text messages which revealed that she had been unfaithful to him.
He then hacked into an account that she maintained with the popular Friends Reunited web site, altered her details, and posted explicit photographs of her on the site's message page for anyone to see. He also hacked into the woman's e-mail account and directed one of her friends to the images. Finally, he set up a web site where he showed explicit video footage of her.
Nourse pleaded guilty to unlawfully obtaining personal data, unauthorised modification of a computer program and harassment. He was convicted and sentenced to five months' imprisonment. He was also banned from the Friends Reunited service because he obtained the woman's password and accessed her account without authorisation.
The two O2 employees have been sacked, prosecuted for data protection-related offences and, according to comments from O2 reported on TheRegister.co.uk, received fines.
This week, analysts Gartner pointed to the case saying it serves as an example of the insecurity of SMS.