An international student from Nepal has been jailed for filming women customers and co-workers at a Sydney supermarket.
23-year-old Bibek Guragain was arrested in June after a woman noticed a phone near a toilet. It was found he filmed more than forty customers at Woolworths in Surry Hills.
His student visa was cancelled after his first court appearance in June and he was detained in Villawood detention centre.
Guragain pleaded guilty to filming someone in a private act without consent and filming a person’s private parts without consent, AAP reports.
In a letter submitted to the court, Guragain said he wanted to stop.
“I remember wishing that I could stop but I could not and I can’t even explain it.”
“I wish I could turn back time and make everything alright but I am afraid I won’t be able to do it and I have got to live with that guilt now.”
At the Downing Centre Local Court, Magistrate Joanne Keogh acknowledged that Guragain suffered public shame and humiliation.
“But it really doesn’t compare with the shame and the gross invasion of privacy that his offending meant to his victims,” she said.
The judge said he filmed under women’s skirts and shorts on multiple occasions when he was meant to be working.
Guragain was taken into custody after he was sentenced to ten months imprisonment. He will serve a non-parole period of six months backdated from June.
He is likely to be deported to Nepal after serving the non-parole period.
