On Wednesday, a 23-year-old international student Bibek Guragain, who worked at a Woolworths outlet in Surry Hills was sentenced to 10 months in prison with a non-parole period of six months for filming his female co-workers in the toilet.
He was at a loss to explain why he upskirted customers and filmed his co-workers in the toilet, telling court he could not stop.
Bibek Guragain was arrested in June after an 18-year-old woman noticed a phone near a toilet at Woolworths.
AAP reports the 23-year-old has since pleaded guilty to filming someone in a private act without consent and filming a person’s private parts without consent, and says he still doesn’t understand why he did it.
“I remember wishing that I could stop but I could not and I can’t even explain it,” Guragain said in a letter tendered in court.
“I wish I could turn back time and make everything alright but I am afraid I won’t be able to do it and I have got to live with that guilt now.”
The Nepalese national had his student visa revoked after his first court appearance in June, and he was detained at Villawood Detention Centre until his sentence at Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday.
He was taken into the custody of Corrective Services NSW after magistrate Joanne Keogh sentenced him to 10 months in prison with a non-parole period of six months, backdated from June.
Ms Keogh acknowledged Guragain suffered public shame and humiliation and had likely thrown three years of study at a Sydney university down the drain.
“But it really doesn’t compare with the shame and the gross invasion of privacy that his offending meant to his victims,” she said.
The judge said Guragain filmed under women’s skirts and shorts on multiple occasions when he was meant to be working.
He also used a “secret filming mode” on his phone and placed it in a staff toilet, with police later finding more than 250 saved files in his secret camera application.
Police prosecutor Ross Mitchell told the court his offences were serious and ongoing, and involved a degree of planning.
Guragain in his letter apologised to his co-workers, family and friends for breaking their trust.
“I don’t know if I deserve a chance or not but I would like to assure you that this will be the last time I engaged in an unethical and unlawful activity,” he said.
He will face six months behind bars before he is deported.
