A Wollongong hairdresser who secretly filmed another man urinating next to him in a shopping centre bathroom will not have a criminal conviction recorded against his name.
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Magistrate Michael O'Brien accepted that Dimitri Papodopulous' behaviour inside the Wollongong Central toilet block on the afternoon of September 22 was a one-off that was highly unlikely to be repeated.
Agreed facts tendered to Wollongong Local Court heard CCTV footage showed Papodopulous entering the toilet at 1.25pm and the victim entering at 1.32pm.
The court heard the victim took the urinal next to Papodopulous, who then began filming the man on his mobile phone.
The victim realised what was happening when Papodopolous began replaying the video back to himself and he could hear the same music playing in the background.
"Were you recording me?" the victim asked Papodopulous, who said "no, I didn't" then immediately left the bathroom.
The victim reported the incident to the Wollongong Central security team, who contacted police.
When arrested that afternoon, Papodopulous initially denied taking the video, however later confessed to his crime, telling police "I know I shouldn't have recorded him, I knew it was the wrong thing to do".
Papodopulous said the victim "turned him on" and that he'd waited for him in the toilet block.
"I thought he liked me but didn't say anything," Papodopulous said during his police interview, confirming he'd deleted the video immediately.
Papodopulous subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of filming a person's private parts without consent.
In court yesterday, defence lawyer Graeme Morrison said Papodopolous ran a successful business but like many people, had been hit by the pandemic, which left him suffering depression and anxiety.
He said Papodopolous had "come out" to his father about his sexuality in the wake of media coverage of his crime.
Magistrate Michael O'Brien agreed not to record a conviction against Papodopolous, instead placing him on a 12-month bond.
He accepted Papodopolous' guilty plea was "a sign of remorse and contrition" for his actions and that psychological reports tendered to the court said he was unlikely to reoffend.
Read more Illawarra court and crime stories here.
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