An art student was arrested and charged with making “revenge porn” for including a naked photograph of her former boyfriend in a university project. Lauren Smith, 26, included a heavily-cropped photograph of the man in a piece of artwork, which was awarded a first and published on her artwork Facebook page -but none of her personal social media accounts.

The University of Lincoln student was charged with disclosing a private, sexual photograph with intent to cause distress - the charge commonly known as “revenge porn” after her former boyfriend claimed to have identified himself and was “embarrassed”.

The original image had been 'topped and tailed' to edit out the head and genitals, but the complainant argued he could identify himself in it.

The artist made no reference as to who the image, set within a number of other photographs, depicted, a court heard.

Ms Smith denied the charge, alleged to have been committed between May and September last year, and was due to stand trial at Maidstone Crown Court on Wednesday.

Before a jury was sworn to hear the case judge said he had "real misgivings" about the prosecution's arguments. He highlighted the purpose of the law, which was introduced by Parliament to tackle the increasing numbers of incidents whereby sexually explicit images or video are uploaded to the internet to humiliate the individual depicted and without their consent.