A YOUNG man's impulsive decision to email two pictures of himself and his girlfriend having sex when they were 17 still haunts him seven years on.

The man, now 24 and on the sex offender register as a result of that email, found himself back in court and fined $400 last week for accidentally breaching one of the register's stringent reporting requirements: he forgot to tell police when he briefly registered a motorcycle in his name last year.

The young man — who describes sending the email to three male friends as "a completely out of character and stupid thing to do" — broke up with his girlfriend a year after they decided to film themselves having sex.

In what he describes as "a moment of rage" he emailed two still images from the film — in which neither he nor the partially clothed girl was identifiable. Shortly after pressing "send" he regretted his action and contacted the recipients, asking them to delete the pictures. But the girl found out and complained to police.

The pictures were never found as they had been deleted, but the youth's admissions to police led to him being charged with one count of making child pornography and two of transmitting child pornography online.