LONSON – An Indian-origin science teacher has been jailed for over fouryears after he pleaded guilty to placing cameras in toilets of threeschools where he worked in southwest England.
Rahul Odedra positioned the cameras in cubicles and toilet roll holders tofilm dozens of women and girls using the facilities, the Gloucester CrownCourt was told.
The 46-year-old was described by Judge Ian Lawriea as “not wholly bad, andnot wholly good” as he sentenced him yesterday for “persistently anddeliberately” carrying out his perverse compulsion.
Odedra had earlier pleaded guilty to one offence of attempting to possessan indecent image, two offences of possession of indecent images and 20offences of voyeurism between 2009 and 2017. “He would set it up in thelunch period and then take it down later,” prosecutor Anjali Gohil told thecourt. “No one goes to a toilet, locks the door and expects to be filmedfor third parties to see,” she added.
The judge agreed that it was a “gross breach of trust” and a “brazen”violation. “You are facing the consequences of what is long heldvoyeuristic compulsion to look at females. A toxic secret with theconsequence you are going to prison,” he told Odedra.
“People’s dignity should be respected. This was a carefully calculatedintrusion into people’s privacy. This is some of the worst examples of thistype of offending. You caused immeasurable emotional harm to your victims,”he noted. The teacher, described as good at his job, was caught when apupil noticed he was trying to film up her skirt and reported him.
Police later seized 200 videos showing women or girls on the toilet orfilmed up their skirts. On analysis of the images, officers found that hehad cropped and clipped the films he captured in the toilet so that hecould watch back-to-back images of females “in the act of wiping”.
Odedra’s lawyer, Joseph Keating, told the court that his client is aware ofseriousness of the offences, which were born out of an “interest invoyeurism”. “At the time of doing this, he had little comprehension of theimpact on the victims as they were not physically harmed, but he now fullyunderstands the lasting impact that will be hard to bear. He would like toapologise. He is deeply sorry for what he did,” he said, adding that hisclient had lost “everything good in his life” as a result of the offences.
Besides the prison sentence, Odedra was made the subject of a sexual harmprevention order and was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register forlife. – PTI