A man who secretly captured intimate images of two women by hiding cameras in bathrooms has been jailed for one year.
Anthony Dunne (61) recorded a video of a colleague at the factory where he worked while she was using the shower facilities by attaching a camera to his phone and hiding the devices behind boxes.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Dunne also captured images of his then partner's daughter-in-law while she used the bathroom in her home.
Dunne of Hazelmere, Naas, Co Kildare, pleaded guilty to harassment of Leanne Daly at an address in Clondalkin, Dublin during the period between February 2020 and April 2020.
He also pleaded guilty to recording an intimate image without consent at O'Neills Factory, Long Mile Road, Walkinstown, Dublin, on March 23rd, 2021. He has no previous convictions.
Mark Lynam BL, prosecuting, told the court that the injured parties had been consulted and neither of them are seeking anonymity.
Gross violation of privacy
Passing sentence on Tuesday, Judge Orla Crowe said that the invasion of privacy in this case cannot be denied in any way.
The judge said the offending was aggravated by the fact that Dunne knew these women, that they trusted him and this was therefore a gross breach of their trust and gross violation of their privacy.
She said there was a considerable amount of premeditation. She said he would have had to have watched their movements to know where they would be in order to set up the phone.
Judge Crowe sentenced Dunne to one year imprisonment. She also ordered that he have no contact with Ms Daly for two years post-release.
In her victim impact statement, Paula Jordan said it had started off as a really good day, but little did she know that by the afternoon she would be left “sickened and distraught” by a work colleague she had known for 20 years setting up a camera to secretly record her.
Ms Jordan said that to realise now he was “obviously stalking” her to do what he did was “extremely distressing”. She said this was very much premeditated and it scares her to think what was going through his mind.
Nightmares
She said it has seriously impacted her level of trust with people. She said she was experiencing sleep difficulties, is on edge most of the time and finds herself anxious.
Ms Jordan said she no longer avails of the shower facilities at work.
In her victim impact statement, Leanne Daly said there has been a serious effect on her since she found out that someone she trusted had been secretly filming her in her house where she had always felt safe.
Ms Daly said she cannot sleep at night and is woken by nightmares of him watching her. She said the visions will not go away no matter how hard she tries, and that this will haunt her forever.
She said what has caused her to stress is the length he went to just to record her in the shower. She said he had to have known her routine as the timing had to be perfect to catch her.
Ms Daly said she is so relieved he has been caught because she would not want any other girl to go through what she went through.
Additional evidence
Garda Sean Carrick told Mr Lynam that on the date in March 2021, Ms Jordan returned from a run at lunchtime in the factory where she worked in HR. Dunne worked as a delivery driver in the same factory.
Gda Carrick said Ms Jordan used the shower facility in the factory and that as she was drying herself, she stumbled slightly and bumped into some boxes. This caused her to notice a phone on the ground, which she realised had a lead sticking out of it connecting to a camera.
Ms Jordan picked up the phone and discovered it had been recording for approximately an hour. She was able to determine that an email address linked to the phone bore Dunne's name and she turned it over to management at the factory before contacting gardaí two days later.
Dunne was called into the office by management where he was asked to confirm the phone belonged to him. He confirmed it was his phone, declined to elect for disciplinary proceedings and resigned with immediate effect.
Gardaí received custody of the phone and were able to analyse it after Dunne provided the PIN. They viewed the video that had been recorded, which showed a dark room for the first 50 minutes before Ms Jordan comes in and is captured using the shower.
Gardaí also found images of another woman on the phone. Dunne had been in a relationship with a woman at the time and had set up his phone to take intimate images of Ms Daly, his then partner's daughter-in-law, in the bathroom of their home.
Dunne had not been living in this house in Clondalkin, but had been a frequent visitor during the approximately 12 years he had been in this relationship. The images were taken between February and April 2020.
Gda Carrick agreed with Oisin Clarke BL, defending, that had his client not given gardaí the PIN for his phone, it would have been much more difficult for gardaí to analyse it. He agreed his client has never come to Garda attention prior to or since these incidents.
The garda agreed with counsel that the familial ties have been broken because of the nature of this offence. He agreed Dunne is out of work since the offence came to light and that this is of his own making.
Mr Clarke said his client has been assessed as being at a low risk of reoffending.
