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Teacher admits intimate recording charges
Name suppression continues for a teacher who has admitted making 20 secret intimate recordings over several months last year after he was caught filming up a girl?s skirt two months ago.
The offending involves 17 victims, six of whom have been identified in the video footage found by the police. Some are school students.
The man, who is married, has been allowed continued interim name suppression until the suppression issue can be fully argued at a hearing on February 15. Police want the suppression lifted, and so does the institution involved.
Defence counsel Bryan Green argued that a letter from one of the victims? families sought the continued suppression because publication might mean that the child involved would have to be told.
Most of the victims remain unaware of the offending.
The middle-aged man used a pen camera ? which looks like a normal pen ? to covertly film under the skirts of girls. He bought the pen at a local electronics store.
Christchurch District Court Judge David Holderness imposed suppression that limits reporting of the offence locations to ?Christchurch and surrounding areas? in the period from June 15 to November 17. The name of the institution where he worked cannot be published.
The footage from the pen camera can be loaded into a computer through the USB connection.
Over five months, the man viewed or attempted to view videos on his work laptop computer from the pen camera more than 400 times.
Police prosecutor Bronwen Skea said: ?The defendant saved the video he liked to his work laptop, an external hard drive, and a pen drive.?
The police detailed how the man videoed up the skirt of a young student as she walked upstairs, or used the device when he was at other locations.
On Saturday November 17, he approached a 14-year-old girl and used the pen camera to video under her skirt.
Miss Skea said he then placed the pen camera in his pocket and continued walking until he was approached by a security officer who had observed his actions.
He was requested to return to the security office but refused to hand over the camera pen to security staff.
On his way to the office, he went to the toilet where he removed the camera pen from his pocket, pulled it into three parts before dropping the circuit board and memory card into the toilet bowl and flushing it away.
The police were contacted, and he was arrested.
Police then executed a search warrant at the man?s home and seized laptops and electronic storage devices which were examined by the Electronic Crime Laboratory.
The videos they found showed the underwear-clad or naked buttocks of the victims and the videos were taken without the victims? consent. Despite extensive inquiries by the police, several of the victims remain unidentified.
The man helped the police to identify three of the victims.
He told police it was the first time he had acted in this way, and assured them that he did not share the videos and they were no longer able to be viewed.
?In explanation, he stated that he received sexual pleasure from both making and viewing the videos. He was remorseful for his actions and was sorry to the victims, his wife, family, friends and colleagues.?
Judge Holderness remanded the man on bail to April 18 for a pre-sentence report and sentencing, and ordered an assessment of his suitability for home detention.
