Jail term for filming in shower

Judge Duncan Harvey.

People who offend in this way could expect to go to jail, Judge Duncan Harvey told a 57-year-old man in the Kaitaia District Court last week.

The man, who did not seek or receive name suppression (but won't be named to protect his victim), was jailed for 16 months, followed by six months' post-release conditions, having admitted and been convicted on three counts of making an intimate visual recording (one of them representative), three of possessing an intimate visual recording (one of them representative), and one of indecently assaulting a female aged 12-16.

A charge of indecently assaulting a female under 12, which he had denied, was withdrawn.

Judge Duncan Harvey.

The court heard that the defendant had set up a camera to film the victim while she was showering. He would later retrieve the camera and view the footage, masturbating as he watched. The summary of facts referred to six occasions on which the camera was used in that way.

The defendant subsequently admitted his actions to the victim, telling her that he had also filmed a school friend, a girl of a similar age, and compared their bodies in conversation with the victim. On another occasion he showed the victim a vibrator, asked her if she used it, then turned it on and placed it against her leg. She pushed his hand away.

Crown prosecutor Bernadette O'Connor told Judge Harvey that the starting point for sentencing should be two and a half years' jail. She strongly opposed the defence argument for home detention.

Counsel John Munro said his client acknowledged that his actions had caused hurt and pain for the victim and her family, and that the victim was now "somewhat estranged" from her mother, but he would do whatever he could to rectify the harm he had done, if that was possible.

The indecent assault was at the lower level of offending, while his client had done a great deal of work to rehabilitate himself, efforts that could be wasted if the court imposed a punitive sentence.

The defendant had previously been a man of good character, and Mr Munro believed the community would be comfortable with home detention.

Judge Harvey doubted the depth of the defendant's remorse, however, and told him that he hoped the harm he had done was now absolutely clear to him.

"Your counsel says it will be a tragedy to undo the progress you have made by sending you to jail ... but the real tragedy is that this offending has torn the whanau apart," he said.

Judge Harvey described the statement in the pre-sentence report that the defendant had not known what he was doing was wrong, and did not acknowledge its effect on the victim, as breath-taking; the main source of his remorse seemed to be the effect his offending had had on his relationships with family and friends.

Technology was making this type of offending easier and easier, he added, and people had to know that if they offended in this way they would go to prison.