A Courtenay man has been found guilty of voyeurism for recording images of his wife using a hidden camera inside an alarm clock on a bedside table.
Courtenay Provincial Court Judge Alexander Wolf in his Oct. 17 decision said A.B. made a digital recording in July 2020 in a situation where the wife had an expectation of privacy.
“The recording was made without the complainant's consent or knowledge,” Wolf said.
He said the complainant was not in bed with anyone.
Wolf said A.B. admitted to making a digital recording and that he sent it to his wife. The video was seen in court.
“I emphasize, at no time at all was she sexually intimate with any person in the recording. This is important to know because the accused thought he would ‘catch her in the act of having an extra marital affair with someone. This may have been one of the reasons he placed the camera there.”
And, the judge said, the case was not about whether either marital partner was being faithful or unfaithful. Rather, he said, it was about whether or not S.F. had acted in a criminal manner.
“I conclude the accused’s behaviour was not legal, was very intrusive and disrespectful of the privacy that one expects in their own home,” Wolf said.
He accepted the wife’s evidence that she had no idea the camera was there.
“It was an alarm clock, with a hidden camera, and a hidden motion sensor that could record images, without the subject of those images being aware that a recording was taking place,” Wolf said.
When she learned that the alarm clock was also a hidden camera, she got a sledgehammer and smashed it, state court documents.
Wolf said he accepted S.F.’s explanation to police that one purpose of the hidden camera was to protect him from false allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
The judge also accepted his explanation to the police that another purpose of the camera was to potentially catch the complainant in an act of infidelity.
“This is not a case where someone has secretly recorded people for some sexual purpose,” Wolf stressed.
Wolf acquitted the man of harassment.
And, he added, “Many of the events in this trial are one hundred per cent consistent with a high-conflict divorce case. “
