Woman Faces Penalty For Recording Man Masturbating On Train

@Onlygold20/Twitter

A woman who filmed a man allegedly masturbating opposite her on a train claims she could face a harsher penalty for making the video than the man himself.

The video went viral after the woman, Natasha, posted it on Twitter last week, so far racking up more than 117,000 views.

While the man could potentially face a jail sentence of up to one year, as well as a €15,000 fine if found guilty, the woman who made the video alleges she could also be punished with a jail sentence and even a €45,000 fine for apparently breaching the man’s privacy, as she did not have his consent to film.

@Onlygold20/Twitter

The footage was reportedly filmed while Natasha was on the train from Paris to Poiters. Posting the video online, Natasha wrote (translated): ‘Paris> Poitiers by TGV (about 1h15) with a guy who changes places and sits in front of me, looks at me and masturbates … there’s still work! No reason not to display it so I put the video here! (The most soft videos say)’.

Natasha has filed a complaint with the railway company SNCF, but despite a response from them, she feels it is ‘too little too late’, telling Le Parisien: ‘The SNCF, apart from his good advice for the next time, gave no sign of life.’

Natasha says the man apparently masturbated in front of her for around one hour and 15 minutes, claiming he occasionally made eye contact with her and even followed her to the toilet at one point.

Natasha is the vice-president of MoiAussiAmnesie, a group which provides support to victims of sexual assault who suffer amnesia, MailOnline reports. She felt she had no other choice to film the man on the train because she thought ‘it might be my only way to defend myself.’

She has since handed the video to the police, saying: ‘I filed a complaint and the police were very attentive. They were really great, they now have all the videos.’

Natasha said she makes this journey around once a week, and hopes her complaint will be taken seriously and be followed up. She says, before now, she had never experienced anything like this on the train.

While Natasha says she won’t stop using the train, she wants to see efforts taken to minimise this type of occurrence, as ‘it could have happened with a child or girl.’

The rail operators, SNCF, have apologised for the ‘difficult conditions’ Natasha faced, adding the number for French emergency services is displayed in almost all stations in the country, but said it was ‘unfortunately impossible to deploy a security team’ to all trains.

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Charlie Cocksedge

Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.