Jake James Devereux (26) appeared in the Dunedin District Court yesterday for sentencing on five charges of making an intimate visual recording as well as counts of theft and resisting police.
Devereux was initially sentenced to 18 months’ intensive supervision in May 2019 on the lead charge of making an intimate recording, while the other charges were to ‘‘hang over his head’’, Judge Michael Crosbie said.
Devereux’s earlier application for name suppression, on the basis that his surname was shared by several prominent professionals in the city, had been declined.
Devereux’s offending began in February 2018 when he held his phone in a position to film up a woman’s skirt as she boarded a bus in George St.
That May, Devereux was in the same area of the CBD, waiting at a pedestrian crossing, when he activated his phone’s camera to film a woman beside him in a skirt while he pretended to tie his shoe laces.
The next day he employed similar tactics and filmed one woman outside Farmers department store, but when he found another target inside the Princes St Night n Day he was spotted.
Devereux crouched beside a woman, who was wearing a long white dress, pretending he was interested in items on a low shelf.
He held the phone between her legs. Devereux was ejected by store security.
On February 21, 2018, he checked into the Leviathan Hotel.
That morning Devereux saw a woman enter the shower, waited for her to turn the water on then placed his cellphone under the partition.
Devereux was arrested and released on strict bail conditions but was caught again trying to film up two women’s skirts at a dairy in December 2018.
Judge Crosbie said reports following his initial sentencing showed Devereux was a low risk of re-offending, he had expressed remorse, and he was seeing a psychologist.
He also took into account the fact that Devereux had spent 10 months in custody.
However, that did not take away from the seriousness of the offending, which Judge Crosbie described as degrading.
He sentenced Devereux to a further nine months of intensive supervision.
