A foreign student who filmed his naked female housemates while they showered has avoided jail.
Rico Auliaputra, an Indonesian national studying at NSW’s Wollongong University, hid behind his dark sunglasses after pleading guilty to the offence on Wednesday.
The 26-year-old used a household sponge in the bathroom to hide a recording camera, Nine News reported.
Rico Auliaputra pleaded guilty to filming his naked female housemates in the shower
The student hid the camera inside a sponge with a cord connecting to a battery pack in the bathroom’s vanity unit
Footage showed the student hiding behind dark glasses, a black hoodie and his backpack before leaving court in a car.
The court heard his housemates discovered a green flashing light inside the sponge on the bathroom floor.
The camera had a cord attached to it connecting to a battery pack in the vanity unit.
He was sharing his unit with three women in Wollongong, the same town he attended University.
Police investigating were unable to locate the camera’s SD card containing the images because the student had thrown it from the balcony and then lost it.
The student admitted it was now ‘hard to be trusted’, and regrets his actions, Nine News reported.
‘I regret what I did because I betrayed my friends. It’s hard now to be trusted because of the mistake I did,’ he reportedly said.
Prosecutions argued he deserved time behind bars due to it being a serious offence and breach of trust.
Magistrate Cate Follent told the student his behaviour was calculative and exploitative.’
‘What you did was reprehensible, abusing the significant trust of your friends. It was calculative and exploitative for your own gratification.’
She considered his guilty plea and character in sentencing him to 250 hours of community service, but he avoided jail.
The student (pictured) admitted it was now ‘hard to be trusted’, and regrets his actions