Woman surprised to find her laptop had recorded intimate videos
A woman installing a programme on her laptop was surprised to find a folder containing videos the computer’s webcam had taken of her changing clothes in her bedroom.
The woman then confronted a man she had met at a party, who had helped her by installing some web development programmes on the laptop.
The police allege the 34-year-old man, Roy Thomas, of Edgeware, installed Photoshop and another programme as requested but also installed a programme that secretly recorded videos. The woman said he never told her that he was installing this other programme.
Thomas denies charges of causing the data or software in the woman’s computer to be modified without authority, and that he “intentionally or recklessly made an intimate visual recording of another person”.
He is on trial before Judge David Saunders in the Christchurch District Court, sitting without a jury. Some prosecution witnesses were being heard today and the trial will continue on June 2.
The woman said Thomas installed the programmes on December 20, 2014, and returned to copy some movies onto her laptop and pick up a text book he had loaned her on January 14, 2015. She alleged that he copied videos off her computer that day, when he hooked up his external hard drive. She also believed he had set up remote access to her laptop.
He had earlier advised her not to close her laptop when she was not using it, so that it would not wear out its hinges.
The woman, who has name suppression, said she was later installing a video player programme and found a folder which contained videos of her in her bedroom including lying on her bed and getting changed. The programme had Thomas’ user ID on it.
She and some friends confronted Thomas and found the intimate videos on his hard drive and checked his laptop. She said he had kept saying that he had forgotten to tell her about installing the programme.
Defence counsel David Goldwater said Thomas had been acting as a friend, and assisting the woman by installing the programmes and had told her about them all. He had done it with her consent, and she had understood the nature of what was being installed. Thomas said he had never watched the videos.
Cross-examined, the woman said she had not realised until later that there was a red light flashing when the laptop’s webcam was recording. She denied that she had forgotten the information Thomas had given her, or was not paying attention to what he was saying, when he had installed the programmes.
The trial is continuing.
Category: News
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