A landlord who hid miniature cameras in the ceilings of his tenants' bedroom, bathroom and living room, videod their every move and downloaded certain images onto his computer, pleaded guilty to a charge of harassment at Galway District Court yesterday.
Factory worker, Hugh O'Donnell (30), Rahoon, Galway, hid the cameras in the corner of each room to spy on his tenants and was arrested following a complaint to gardaí by a female tenant on March 4th last year. O'Donnell was charged with harassing this female between March 1st and 9th last at his address, contrary to Section 10 (1) and (6) of the Non Fatal Offences Against the Persons Act, 1997.
Insp Tony O'Donnell said gardaí carried out a search of the house, which O'Donnell shared with tenants, and found hidden cameras in rooms let out to his tenants. The cameras were connected to recording equipment, which in turn, was connected to a computer belonging to the accused. Many of the images recorded by the video recorder had been downloaded onto the computer. Insp O'Donnell did not specify how many tenants had been recorded but he indicated that there were three witnesses in court, including expert witnesses.
Gardaí seized the computer and it was found to contain 12 other files which contained around 100 images of child pornography.
O'Donnell was further charged with having in his possession computer images of male and female children engaging in explicit sexual activity, contrary to Section 6 (1) of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998.
Defending solicitor, Olivia Traynor, said her client was pleading guilty to both charges. She asked for the matter to be adjourned for two weeks so that her client's barrister could be present to address the court. Judge Gerard Haughton accepted jurisdiction because O'Donnell pleaded guilty and he adjourned the matter for sentencing to April 7th next.