Mark Latham's ex-girlfriend found guilty over photo of naked selfie

Independent MP Mark Latham's former partner has been found guilty of recording an intimate image without consent after photographing a naked selfie another woman had sent to the politician.

Nathalie Matthews was found not guilty of a separate charge of accessing restricted data without authorisation.

Matthews was arrested after flying into Sydney Airport last year and charged over the incident, which took place in October 2024, when she and Mr Latham were living together.

The court heard the prosecution and defence agreed that Matthews had used Mr Latham's password to log on to his computer, where she discovered naked and topless images another woman had sent him.

She then used her mobile phone to take pictures of the images and texted the photos to Mr Latham, accusing him of infidelity.

On Monday, Mr Latham told the court he did not know the images were stored on his computer when he gave Matthews the password so she could print some documents.

He said three days later she messaged him on WhatsApp asking, "do you have photos of other women?"

He told the court he was initially confused by the message but then jokingly sent her photos of some of his parliamentary colleagues in business suits and wrote "busted!!"

"I didn't really know what she was talking about so I made a joke of it," he told the judge.

He said Matthews then sent through pictures of a woman he had been intimate with, including one in which she was naked, and asked, "who is she?"

Mr Latham said it was only then he realised they had been stored on his computer.

He told the court the woman, who was referred to by the pseudonym "A.A", had sent the photos to his phone and he did not realise they had been synced to his desktop.

Latham 'freely handed over his password'

The prosecution argued Matthews had accessed restricted data because the computer was password protected, saying Mr Latham had only given Matthews the password so she could print some documents, not access all of the computer's content.

But Judge Marguerite Vassall disagreed, noting that Mr Latham had "freely handed over his password without any further comment to restrict what could or couldn't be accessed".

In closing submissions on Monday, Matthews's lawyer argued that there was no evidence before the court that the images were intimate, as the complainant in the case, A.A, had not given evidence.

He also suggested that even if the judge found they were intimate images, any reasonable person would find Matthews's actions "acceptable," given the "hurt, betrayal and shock" she had experienced from discovering Mr Latham's infidelity.

But Justice Vassall rejected those arguments, saying A.A's privacy had been violated and "Ms Matthews could have confronted Mr Latham about his infidelity without taking photographs of those images".