On the second day of his Brisbane District Court trial, Adrian Blair Cookson, 42, made a "no case’’ submission.
His barrister Craig Eberhardt argued the evidence against his client was inconsistent and that the alleged offence could not be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Mr Cookson, of Nundah, had pleaded not guilty yesterday to one count of making observations or recordings in breach of privacy.
It had been alleged he used his mobile phone to film under a 44-year-old woman’s skirt as she shopped in a David Jones store in Brisbane in January last year.
After hearing submissions from Mr Eberhardt, Senior Judge Gilbert Trafford-Walker ruled there was not sufficient evidence and ordered the jury to acquit Mr Cookson. "
I think there has to be more to the story. Did the man know the woman before? Was he going to sell the video to one of those dodgy websites? Is the woman wasting her time- she took it to court and spent two days in court -because the laws do not protect her?
If there are laws saying you cannot be filmed in public places, these laws could get a real workout. Almost everyone these days can buy a camera or phone with video ability.
From reading the article, it seems clear to me that you can photograph people in public places without their consent in Queensland. It also appears that you cannot photograph up their skirts to show places that are not normally exposed to the public, since that would have been the essence of the charge against the man. However, it seems that in this particular case, although he may have been trying, he did not photograph enough of her private parts to have a chance of a successful conviction.
But you’d need to read the specific laws under which he was charged, and see the evidence in this case to draw much more of a conclusion than that.
It sounds like he was acquitted because there was no evidence that he did what he was accused of. It certainly wouldn’t be a good thing to convict people without evidence.
I think the second article has a pragraph that sums up the whole case:
So it’s not that he was accused of taking upskirt photos; he was accused of trying to take them. If I attempt murder and fail, there are crimes I can be charged with, but murder is not one of them. Furthermore, it’s a lot harder to provide evidence of intent than it is to prove what actually happened.
I guess the woman’s point about a weakness of the laws is that there should either be an “attempted peeping” law for cases where someone isn’t successful, or a loosening of the evidence requirements for showing intent. I’m just not sure how well either would work.
I don’t think there needs to be any relationship between the parties to explain the woman’s reaction. In this case, some random guy was following close behind her and her daughter? I’m a guy and not particularly sensitive to these things, but I’d feel uncomfortable in that situation. If I were a woman, I could see feeling threatened.