A MAN who hid a mobile telephone in a toilet to video record a workmate has been convicted and placed on two good behaviour bonds.
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Kerry James Lloyd, of Junee, was sentenced in Wagga Local Court on Monday after pleading guilty to two offences: installing a device to observe or film another; and filming a person in a private act without consent.
The court heard that 30-year-old Lloyd had been sacked from his job as a cleaner at a Wagga motel after his offences were discovered.
Lloyd’s solicitor, Morgan Jones, told magistrate Michael Crompton his client had placed the mobile phone in the toilet as a prank.
He said Lloyd and the man he videoed routinely played pranks on each other.
According to agreed police facts tendered to the court, Lloyd had been employed at the motel for four months when he put the phone in a uni-sex toilet used by motel guests, but which was also the preferred toilet of staff members.
Just before 10am on June 2 last year, Lloyd hid the phone next to a waste paper bin and covered it – except for the camera lens – with tissue paper.
A few minutes later, Lloyd’s victim went into the toilet and then spoke with Lloyd when he came out.
About 11am – almost an hour later – a female staff member went into the toilet.
According to the police facts, she saw a large amount of tissue paper around a paper waste bin and thought that was unusual because she knew Lloyd had cleaned the toilet earlier that morning.
Concerned about the bad look for the motel, she started to clean up the tissue paper and became extremely upset when she found the phone, worried she might have been videoed while using the toilet.
She took the phone to a manager, who contacted police.
Lloyd initially denied secreting the phone in the toilet, but when police viewed the video recording he could be seen placing tissue paper around the phone while it was on the floor as well as making adjustments to how the phone was positioned.
The video also showed Lloyd’s male victim using the toilet.
Mr Jones said Lloyd now acknowledged he had abused his position as a cleaner.
“It was done as a prank and without thought of the consequences,” Mr Jones said.
Mr Crompton placed Lloyd on two 15-month concurrent good behaviour bonds.
He also fined Lloyd $1000.
