Prison sentenced commuted to home detention

File Photo / Greg Bowker

A Rotorua man who made visual recordings of one girl sleeping and other girls in a shower has had his prison term replaced by home detention.

In the High Court at Rotorua today, Simon Nicholas Plaistowe, 47, won an appeal against the sentence imposed in the Rotorua District Court late last month.

Justice Peter Woodhouse ruled Plaistowe and the community would be better served by him being on home detention.

The judge said if Plaistowe, 47, spent a year behind bars as the District Court judge had ordered, it was likely he would be free in six months. If he was on home detention he would serve the full 12 months.

He also noted with home detention Plaistowe would be compelled to undertake psychological counselling, which may not necessarily be the case in prison.

In the District Court Plaistowe, a former IT technician, pleaded guilty to 10 charges which the High Court judge said fell into three categories. One was using a video camera to make an intimate visual recording of a 17-year-old as she slept, zooming in on her chest and breasts. The second group related to filming two younger girls as they showered, while the third charge was an attempt by him to repeat these former actions.

Plaistowe had spent considerable time positioning the bathroom camera to obtain footage of the girls and all but one of them had been naked, the judge said. The district court was told Plaistowe had filmed them by using a camera disguised as a pen.

Justice Woodhouse said Plaistowe had also spent significant time transferring the images to his computer's hard drive, then editing the footage.

He considered home detention was substantially more likely to reduce Plaistowe's risk of re-offending.

"It is regarded as the most serious sentence, next to imprisonment," the judge said.

"These were grave offences, conduct that warrants serious condemnation, the harm to these young girls is not in any way underestimated by the court."

Among the special conditions attached to Plaistowe's home detention is that he continues with psychological counselling for a further year after the home detention period ends, that he only uses a computer under the supervision of the man to whose home he has been released, that he does not make contact with the complainants and that he does not associate with any female under 18 unless she is accompanied by an adult.

- NZPA