Man caught secretly filming woman in public toilet loses security licence

Kanava Galuega appeared in Dunedin District Court in 2021. Photo / Otago Daily Times

A man caught filming a woman in a cubicle of a public toilet has had his licence to work in the security industry cancelled.

Kanava Galuega was licensed under the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Act to work as a security technician. His work involved closed-circuit video cameras.

In May 2021, he went into the women’s toilets at The Warehouse in Dunedin and filmed a woman by activating his cellphone camera and placing it under a cubicle partition.

The woman immediately noticed the device and left, alerting store security staff.

Galuega pleaded guilty in the Dunedin District Court to making an intimate visual recording and was sentenced to 200 hours of community work and 12 months of supervision.

Police complained to the Private Security Personnel Licensing Authority about him after his conviction, saying he was no longer suitable to be a security worker.

Authority head Trish McConnell said the offending did not happen while he was working.

“However, it is not completely unrelated and security technician work provides regular opportunities to make other unlawful intimate recordings,” she said.

“I am satisfied that Mr Galuega is no longer suitable to be a responsible security technician,” she said. “Mr Galuega’s certificate of approval is accordingly cancelled.”

McConnell said Galuega had not responded to the police complaint, nor provided any evidence to show that his offending was a one-off, or that he had learned his lesson.

When he appeared in court in October 2021, the then 32-year-old attributed his offending to an out-of-control pornography addiction, the Otago Daily Times reported.

Initially, he tried to pass off what he did as an innocent action.

He said he had “urgently” needed to use the bathroom and was unaware he was in the women’s toilets until he heard a female voice. Then he “panicked”.

He claimed he had used the camera phone under the cubicle wall to see if he was really in the female toilets.

However, Galuega later came clean about his actions. He said he had engaged in counselling.

His lawyer argued for a discharge without conviction, which was opposed by police and the victim.

The woman said she wanted to secure the conviction so that it was on his record when he went for future security jobs, the ODT reported.

“It’s been really hard,” the woman said. “Everywhere you go you over-analyse.”

Sentencing Judge Dominic Flatley declined an application for name suppression.

Galuega’s lawyer, Andrew Dawson, said in 2021 that a criminal conviction would almost certainly result in Galuega being deported to Tuvalu and end his family’s dream of obtaining New Zealand citizenship.

Immigration New Zealand (INZ) said Galuega had not been deported “and is not liable for deportation”.

INZ said it was not able to provide any additional information about Galuega without a privacy waiver.