People didn’t have privacy in a place where they expected to | Photo: Unsplash/HelpStay
A hair stylist for the fashion retailer ASOS pled guilty to voyeurism after planting a camera in the men’s bathroom at a summer work party.
Dominic Hendy, 28, said he placed the camera there due to being ‘sex-starved’.
On 12 July, the company held a party at Hawker House in Canary Wharf, hosting 2,000 people. Hendy placed a camera in a single-person stall and disguised it under rolls of toiler paper.
According to prosecutor Chidi Ikwuakolam, the camera displayed full-frontal views of people for Hendy’s own sexual gratification.
A cleaner was the one to find the camera and he turned it into a manager, believing it was lost property. That’s when they realized it was a camera.
ASOS placed Hendy on suspension. He also faces a 12-month community order, including 150 hours of community service, and must pay fines.
Finally, he also has to register as a sex offender.
‘Not thinking straight’
Hendy’s lawyer and a probation officer explained his actions.
‘He was without sexual contact for a year and felt stressed and was not thinking straight,’ said lawyer Alexander Goscimski.
Goscimski further added Hendy struggles with anxiety and depression and is on medication.
Probation officer Patrick Acres said Hendy had previously been in a relationship, but its end ‘sent him into a spiral of anxiety’.
He continued: ‘One way of coping was to self-medicate with drugs, including ketamine and crystal meth. These drugs lower inhibitions quite drastically and there was some use of pornography, and with the drugs, that led him down this route of setting up the camera.’
Acres revealed Hendy ‘now feels quite sick about it’ and would never do it again.
H/t: Evening Standard
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