France- A FORMER snowboard champion turned sports cameraman and a friend have been convicted for making a ‘pornographic’ snowboarding video.

The pornographic images were flash-cut into a DVD production about snowboarding.

Julien Joud, 31, admitted it was “a really bad idea to film the sex” that took place between his friend and woman during a drunken night and then splice the images into the video.

“I did it as a laugh, but it was a bad joke,” he told the court in the eastern French city of Grenoble.

He and his friend, Jeremy Boissonnet, were fined a total 5000 euros ($6000), to be paid to the woman in the video, and given suspended prison sentences of eight and two months respectively for making the DVD, which was sold to the general public. The court found them guilty of invading the woman’s privacy and making pornography available to minors.

The matter came to light when the woman’s boyfriend, who works in a winter sports shop, watched the video and recognised his girlfriend. He persuaded her to take legal action.

Joud said he had recovered 2966 of the 3000 DVDs put on sale and emphasised that 99 per cent of the video was about snowboarding and the sexual images could only be viewed when the video was slowed down.