A FORMER Meadow Springs man convicted of 12 counts of indecently filming children wept in the Perth District Court after being handed a prison term on Friday.
Andrew Mark Mynett, 46, pleaded guilty to the illicit recording of children after installing cameras in a Waroona public toilet block.
The court heard Mr Mynett placed recording devices behind the toilet seat in the female ablution block on April 6 this year.
For five hours his cameras recorded women and children undressing, urinating and defecating in the toilet before cleaners discovered the cameras later that day.
Up to 90 people were filmed in what the State prosecution described as “high quality, close-up images”.
These images included graphic footage of 12 children.
Mr Mynett handed himself in to police five days after installing the equipment, following the publication of his photo in a police media release about the discovery of the cameras.
His lawyer, Robert Lombardi, described his client as a father of two children who had been a “very responsible member of society up to this point”.
Mr Lombardi said Mr Mynett had no sexual interest in children and was not a paedophile.
He described his client’s actions as a “clumsy, one-off incident” and “amateurish”, despite Mr Mynett being a licensed electrician.
Mr Lombardi said Mr Mynett had been “seduced” by “predatory internet sites” and had started getting excitement out of them before coming up with the “hare-brained idea” to make his own recordings.
“My client has an unhealthy interest in voyeurism,” he said.
The local lawyer slammed the Mandurah Mail for what he said was “alarmist press coverage” of the incident and took issue with Mr Mynett being referred to as a “pervert” in reports.
Judge Patrick O’Neal dismissed Mr Lombardi’s assertion the term was “over-dramatic” and “pejorative”.
“A man places hidden cameras in public toilets and takes pictures of the genitals of someone’s children,” Justice O’Neal said.
“What would you call him?”
Mr Lombardi also referred to his client’s actions as being at “the very lowest end of criminality of this sort of charge”.
He said the children filmed by the hidden cameras were unaware of the offence taking place and cited this as a mitigating factor in his client’s defence.
Mr Lombardi also said Mr Mynett had not planned on uploading the images to the internet and said the footage was for his client’s “personal use”.
He suggested a fine or a suspended term of imprisonment was a suitable punishment for Mr Mynett.
In handing down his sentence, Justice O’Neal referred to the offences as very serious.
He acknowledged a high degree of planning involved in the setting up of the cameras and did not accept Mr Mynett’s actions had been “amateurish”.
He gave credit to Mr Mynett for handing himself in and for pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity, but said the only appropriate sentence was one of immediate imprisonment.
“You intended to take pictures of everybody,” he said.
“It was inevitable in doing what you did you would capture images of children.”
Justice O’Neal acknowledged Mr Mynett had cooperated with police and said the prospects of rehabilitation for the offender were reasonably good.
Mr Mynett was ordered to serve 12 months behind bars.
He will serve six months before being eligible for parole.
Justice O’Neal ordered all images and footage taken from the hidden cameras be destroyed.
