A camera operator films a piece of video art in Moscow February 28, 2007. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

ROME (Reuters) - Recording secret videos of sex with your partner is not illegal, Italy’s supreme court has ruled.

Rome’s highest appeals acquitted a 49-year-old man who, unbeknown to his girlfriend, had recorded and kept films of them having sex.

It overruled two previous verdicts which had given him a four-month jail sentence.

The woman had agreed to the man using a video camera to project live images of them having sex on to the bedroom wall, but did not know he was recording the action.

The court acquitted the man because he had not distributed the films to other people.

When the relationship ended the man gave the videos to his partner in a package accompanied by a note saying: “These are my last thought for you.”