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 last year 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 waiting at a pedestrian crossing in the same area of the CBD, when he activated his phone’s camera to film a woman in a skirt beside him while he pretended to tie his shoelaces.
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 looking at items on a low shelf.
He held the phone between her legs. Devereux was ejected by store security.
On February 21, 2018, he checked in to 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 attempting to film up two women’s skirts at a dairy in December 2018.
Judge Crosbie said reports following his initial sentencing showed Devereux presented a low risk of reoffending, he had expressed remorse and he was seeing a psychologist.
He also took into account the fact Devereux had spent 10 months in custody.
However, that did not take away from the seriousness of the offending, which was degrading, Judge Crosbie said.
He sentenced Devereux to a further nine months’ intensive supervision.
