However, the 27-year-old was just days away from embarking on a drug-driven shoplifting spree, in which he was stealing to order while under pressure from a gang, court documents revealed.
Devereux initially hit the headlines in 2019 when he pleaded guilty to five charges of making intimate visual recordings.
His application for name suppression, on the basis that his surname was shared by several prominent professionals in the city, was declined.
The Dunedin District Court heard the defendant was wandering around the CBD using his cellphone to film up women’s skirts.
Sometimes he captured footage on the street, other times he would pursue his victims through shops and bend down, pretending to tie his shoelaces.
On one occasion, in December 2018, he stayed at the Leviathan Hotel, where he filmed a woman in the shower.
Devereux was sentenced, on some of the charges, to 18 months’ intensive supervision in May 2019 while others hung over him.
In October last year, another nine months was added after the court heard he presented a low risk of reoffending.
However, Devereux was back in court this week, where it emerged he had begun a month-long spree of thefts several days after the October sentencing.
Counsel Sophia Thorburn said her client had been living in a boarding house where he had been offered drugs by a new resident.
Once he was gripped by addiction and had no way of funding it, he began stealing to order for the gang which was supplying him.
Judge Josephine Bouchier noted that it got to the stage where Devereux’s associates would drop him off at stores and wait for him outside while he pocketed goods.
The defendant stole mostly meat, perfume, clothes and alcohol.
“He wishes he had more willpower and wisdom to say no to those people to start with,” Mrs Thorburn said.
The only viable option was to sentence Devereux to imprisonment, she said.
While behind bars, he was committed to undertaking counselling to “rewire this way of thinking”, Mrs Thorburn said.
Judge Bouchier jailed Devereux for a year on 13 charges of shoplifting and one of trespass.
Repaying the $3364 owed to the victim businesses was “unrealistic” she said, refusing to make a reparation order.
