A Canadian IT professional has been jailed after placing a pen-shaped covert recording device in the women’s toilet at his former workplace.
The man, who can not be named in order to protect the anonymity of the women affected, pleaded guilty to placing the device in the cubicle for the purpose of recording the victims using the toilet.
The court heard that the offending came to light when a janitor at a large company in Dublin noticed the pen placed on a sanitation bin in the cubicle and saw a red light on it.
Becoming suspicious, the janitor passed the device to security, who brought it to management’s attention. After an initial examination determined the pen was a recording device, the Gardaí were alerted.
He was dismissed from his position straight away.
Prosecuting counsel Kieran Kelly BL told Judge Martin Nolan that when Gardaí searched the address of the accused, they found category two “child exposure” imagery, which the court heard was sourced not on the dark web, but from a lesser-used search engine from a “nudist” website.
The court heard that four victims were identified, and that they were unaware of what had happened until it was brought to their attention by company management.
One victim said that she was “entirely unaware that my fundamental right to privacy had been violated” until HR at the company told her she had been “captured on a device left in the bathroom”.
She said learning of this had left her feeling “stripped of my autonomy and peace of mind” and that she had experienced “immense distress and anger” about what had happened.
The woman, who asked that her victim impact report be read aloud, said she was also “left with a retroactive loss of safety” and “questioning who might have seen the footage” and if this had included her fellow employees.
She said she experienced “hyper vigilance” and that her dignity had been “violated” and “destroyed”.
Counsel for the defence, Giollaíosa Ó Lideadha SC, said that his client had been “addicted to pornography” at the time of his offending and that he no longer lives in Ireland. He said that he had come here after his girlfriend entered into education in this jurisdiction.
Having heard the facts, Judge Nolan adjourned the sentencing to consider the matter overnight.
When the sentencing hearing resumed this morning at the Circuit Criminal Court, Judge Nolan said that the charge of intimate filming was “unusual” and that the accused had engaged in a thought-out process to purchase the pen and place it in the toilet.
He noted that the accused, having captured his own image on the pen while setting it up, had led to his “downfall” and commended the janitor for seizing the device and bringing it to the company’s attention.
Speaking of the victims, he said, “It was a serious breach of their privacy, and it was very upsetting for them.”
In mitigation, he took into consideration the accused’s lack of previous convictions, his full admissions in respect of the crime, his cooperation with the investigation and that he was labouring under some “mental health problems” at the time, which Mr Ó Lideadha argued was due to the “sudden” end of his romantic relationship of eight years and the death of his grandfather.
Judge Nolan said that count one was the “more serious” offence and had involved “premeditation and planning”.
“I don’t think a custodial term can be avoided in this case; it’s a pretty insidious crime”, he said, adding that if the “maintenance man hadn’t found it” it was unclear how far it would have gone.
With the maximum sentence for this offence set at two years in prison, the court set a headline sentence of one year, which was reduced to a period of six months.
For the child exposure material, the court imposed a sentence of two years, which was suspended in full on condition of good behaviour for the same period.