WINNIPEG -- A woman who provided someone else’s intimate images to the Brandon Police Service testified she did so because she thought it could be relevant information to them as her potential employer.

Terri-Lyn Peters, 45, took the stand Tuesday as the defendant in a lawsuit filed by the woman in the photos.

The woman, Brittany Roque, alleges Peters shared the images without her consent out of revenge and retaliation.

But Peters’ lawyer argues the distribution was in the public’s interest.

Court heard it was 2008 when Peters, a finance officer working for Brandon police, started dating Ryan Friesen, a police officer working for the same police service.

Peters told court she thought she had won the relationship jackpot before things started deteriorating. 

By 2017 she testified she had asked Friesen for access to his email and social media profiles, suspecting him of infidelity. That’s when court heard Peters found intimate images of Roque and other women in one of Friesen’s Hotmail accounts.

“Honestly, I was in total shock,” Peters testified.

Peters is now being sued by Roque under Manitoba’s Intimate Image Protection Act, after Peters provided Roque’s images to her potential employer — the Brandon Police Service.

Court has previously heard Roque was disqualified from the competition after police received the photos. Roque alleges they were shared by Peters out of revenge and retaliation for a brief relationship Roque had with Friesen, when Roque shared the photos with Friesen.

Michael Dixon, Roque’s husband who’s also a Brandon police officer, testified Wednesday his wife was devastated because she had been working her whole life to become a police officer.

“When it became knowledge to her that these photos had been distributed it unravelled her from one of probably the healthiest points she’s ever been in her life physically and emotionally to one of probably the deepest, darkest points,” Dixon told court.

Peters’ lawyer argues the photos were provided to police because it was in the public’s interest.

Peters testified she knew from Friesen that Roque was applying for a job as a constable with the Brandon police.

“This is information I thought would be relevant to a potential offer of employment,” Peters testified. “I was providing the Brandon police the opportunity to determine whether or not it was relevant to them.”

Court heard Roque’s images weren’t the only ones Peters found in Friesen’s account and gave to police. Peters testified she also gave images of another woman to police because they involved a police officer.

Peters testified she distributed images of two other women found in the account — in one case to a woman’s husband and in another to the woman in the image and who Peters testified she thought was the woman’s best friend.

Roque’s lawyer Kevin Toyne argued this shows Peters has a history of non-consensual distribution of images but Peters’ lawyer Rhea Majewski told Justice Sandra Zinchuk she disagrees.

“What she’s done in a different scenario that’s not an action before this court today does not probatively help you assess what her conduct was in this particular case,” Majewski argued.

Roque is seeking at least $200,000 in damages.

She has waived her right to a publication ban on her identity.

The trial is scheduled to continue Wednesday with Toyne cross-examining Peters.