A Galway city landlord who hid miniature cameras in the ceilings of his tenant's bedroom and bathroom was sentenced to a total of 16 months in prison at Galway District Court yesterday.
Hugh O'Donnell (31), Glendara, Rahoon, pleaded guilty to harassing the woman between March 1st and 9th last year at his address.
He also pleaded guilty to having in his possession computer images of male and female children engaging in explicit sexual activity.
The accused spied on people he shared his house with over a two to three-year period before he was caught by one observant tenant who noticed the hidden cameras and made a complaint to gardaí.
In all, 49 women and 14 men, who had stayed in the rental house over the preceding years, were captured on 19 videos and CDs seized by gardaí.
Passing sentence, Judge John Garavan said O'Donnell had engaged in voyeuristic and obsessive behaviour. The young woman who had been spied on was absolutely devastated. It would be many years before she would recover from such degradation. "The rights of every individual to their privacy and self-respect will have to be protected," he said, before sentencing O'Donnell to nine months for harassing the tenant and a further seven months on the child pornography charge.