A 50-year-old man has been sentenced after he illegally recorded himself having sex with his partner without her consent.
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The man, who we can't name for legal reasons, was convicted on a charge of recording an intimate image without consent in Batemans Bay Local Court in his absence earlier in February.
He returned to court this month to challenge some of the police facts used in the conviction, and to plead not guilty to an associated charge of failing to appear in court.
According to court documents, the man and his victim had finished being intimate about 9.30pm on January 19 when the woman noticed a small camera screen covered by clothing on top of a wardrobe.
The woman saw the item was an iPhone belonging to the man, and then noticed it was recording a video.
The documents state the woman quickly stopped the recording and deleted the video before asking the man how she could "delete the video from the deleted files?".
The man responded: "It's gone ... it's an old phone, it's not in the cloud".
The woman then went to have a shower before attempting to log in to the man's iCloud account. She then asked the man to show her the phone, which he gave to her.
The man sent the woman several apologetic text messages over the two days after the incident, and she told him she would be contacting police.
The victim attended Batemans Bay police station about 2pm on January 21 to report the matter and told police she felt "helpless and violated" and feared others may have access to the video.
The woman also brought a computer to the police station which was seized by police.
When the man was arrested, he made full admissions to recording the video but said any video he had shot was made with the victim's consent.
In court, the man's lawyer told Magistrate Doug Dick his client hadn't appeared in court at the earlier date due to his own error, and the failure to appear charge was dismissed.
"It's obviously a serious offence based on its nature, but given his limited criminal record and the fact he hasn't challenged his conviction, you could take the step of dealing with this with a fine," his lawyer said.
"The offending act wasn't a one off, there were other consensual acts during the relationship, but clearly here he's done the wrong thing."
The man was convicted and fined $2000.
More court and crime news here.
