Courtesy of The Australian where the title was “Fetish for underwear photos lands Sri Lankan born Sydney man in courts but avoids jail after claiming mental illness”
Note that a defence mounted on the basis of conflict in Sri Lanka or “Sri Lankan torture” seems an instrumental course deployed by some Tamils charged with crimes of all sorts in Australia. For the instance of thsoe accused of credit card frauds in Melbourne see, http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/refugees-behind-40000-atm-scam/story-e6frf7jo-1226116693109 …. Web Editor
| Sabapathy Chandrahasan spent a year taking more than 1000 pictures and videos of hundreds of women and girls. In February, the 56-year-old architect, a married father of two, was arrested by police at Central Railway Station during the afternoon rush hour. He had placed a digital camera on the top of a briefcase to film up the skirts of women as they walked up the stairs to a platform. Some of the recordings contained footage of women who weren’t wearing underwear, while others featured their buttocks and underwear. Schoolgirls in their uniforms were among those filmed, with some under the age of 16. Magistrate Janet Wahlquist today gave Chandrahasan a nine-month suspended sentence, noting his plea of guilty, his mental illness and his cooperation with the police. The prosecution had argued for imprisonment. During sentencing submissions today, Chandrahasan’s lawyer, Pauline David, said his crime was in the low range and should be put into perspective. Ms David said he had been suffering from a “compulsive mental illness”, due in part to his high level involvement in the civil unrest in Sri Lanka.“He was involved in talks to resolve that with the Sri Lankan government,” Ms David told the court. As a result he had been ostracised by the Sri Lankan and Tamil community in Sydney and his daughter’s marriage had broken down. A police search of his home in the southern Sydney suburb of Earlwood found about 1100 photos in 1.3 gigabytes of data. As well as Central station, Chandrahasan had done some of his filming at Midcity Shopping Centre in central Sydney. He had pleaded guilty to filming a person’s private parts without consent in aggravated circumstances. |