WA Text message privacy

[Tristo]

My wife has been receiving unsolicited text messages from an ex-colleague.
These messages are in the vein of “if I buy this house will you run away with me” and “please don’t marry him, we’d be so happy together”

This man is married with children and I believe his wife should be informed of his actions, my wife agrees but doesn’t want to be the one to break up a family. I don’t share her compassion for this man.

My question is, are there any legal issues with me sharing screenshots of a private text message (Facebook messenger) with a fourth party when neither myself nor the fourth party were intended recipients of the original messages?

 

[GlassHalfFull]

That sounds less family law and more criminal / defamation law...

 

[Tim W]

His actions look like, maybe, the offence called, for short, "use carriage service to harass".

Taking screen shots... you risk committing offences in the realm of intecepting telecommunications.

Subject to the many unknown facts and circumstances, and with the ifs, buts, maybes, unlesses, and exceptions, not allowed for,
your actions in forwarding the messages could expose you to your own count(s) of "use carriage service to harrass",
telecommunications interception, and potentially to an action for defamation.

And that's before it's none of your business to contact his wife.

 

[Tristo]

Thanks for your input Tim, I really appreciate it.
I will take this into consideration and rethink my approach

 

[Tristo]

That sounds less family law and more criminal / defamation law...

Yeah... wasn’t sure which pigeonhole to drop this in

if there are any mods reading this can you please move it to where you see fit

 

[Atticus]

This man is married with children and I believe his wife should be informed of his actions, my wife agrees but doesn’t want to be the one to break up a family.

Your wife has obviously shared & discussed these messages with you. So if she GENUINELY wants to see the end of these, she just needs to let him know that it needs to stop & as such, will consider any further messages harassment....

She could take it further by letting him know that if needs be, the messages will be provided as evidence to seek a restraining order.... That's not breaking up any family... What he doe's from there is on him.... If he continues & she chooses to carry out the threat, ultimately his wife may find out when police knock on the door to serve him with an interim restraining order

 

[Scruff]

Have your wife change her mobile number. Problem solved.

The far more serious issue you should be concerned about is why are these messages being sent to your wife in the first place.

 

[GlassHalfFull]

Changing your phone number is not a simple thing... obviously the technical change itself is, but people often rely on others having that number, especially if it's published somewhere. It probably makes more sense for his number to be blocked than for her to change her number. Just saying.

 

[Been2Trial]

The far more serious issue you should be concerned about is why are these messages being sent to your wife in the first place.

^ This...

Someone doesn't just send messages like you have described without there being a pretty major relationship history occurring there. This is a law forum, not an infidelity forum, but I think you might be missing a piece of the puzzle here ....