Richard Hemitoa Kohey, 38, admitted to two charges of making an intimate recording, which represented at least 33 incidents of attempting to record up strangers’ skirts or while they undressed in public changing rooms.
He applied for a discharge without conviction in the Dunedin District Court yesterday.
In his capacity as a mental health support worker, he covertly recorded his clients in their own homes.
Kohey would put his phone in his work bag and leave the bag in a spot where the victim would need to step over it.
He also targeted customers at a Dunedin charity shop, which had curtain-clad changing cubicles.
The defendant arranged the curtains so he could peer into the neighbouring cubicles, and listened for when women would enter.
He placed his cellphone through the opening and filmed women changing.
Kohey waited there for more than an hour until one victim caught him kneeling on the floor recording.
He told the woman he was sorry before leaving the store, a police summary said.
When spoken to by police, Kohey admitted the offending and said he had tried to record women while he worked as a cleaner in clients’ homes, in changing rooms at public pools, under tables at public cafes and bars and in Wakari Hospital when he worked there.
The court heard the offending continued until February 5.
Yesterday, counsel Karlena Lawrence argued her client was remorseful and a conviction would be detrimental to his mental health and financial situation.
"It’s been clear and evident throughout dealing with Mr Kohey that he has taken this matter very seriously", Ms Lawrence said.
"The actual recordings do not increase in seriousness in terms of their content or their nature."
She argued the offending would also impact his wife and "everything the two of them [had] worked to achieve in their lifetime".
"If things were to spiral through loss of income and those flow on effects, that will no doubt have a detrimental effect on Mr Kohey."
Ms Lawrence said Kohey would lose his job with Te Whatu Ora if he was convicted, but Judge Deidre Orchard said that was inevitable, regardless of a mark on his record.
"This is a classic case where it’s not the conviction that’s going to lead to consequence, it’s the behaviour itself", the judge said. "The circumstances of your offending are really very serious."
She noted that Kohey initially told his employer he could not recall making the recordings, but in the same meeting admitted he would watch them to relieve his stress.
Judge Orchard said the risk of Kohey offending again was too high for him to escape a conviction and instead sentenced him to five months’ community detention and nine months’ supervision.
felicity.dear@odt.co.nz , PIJF court reporter
