By Michael Evans and with AAP
A Sydney high school teacher caught filming up the skirts of female students in his classroom using a hidden mobile phone has been granted bail pending an appeal, with a magistrate describing his behaviour as a “high-level betrayal”.
Eric Wong, 29, was jailed on Wednesday for 14 months, with a minimum sentence of six months, after he pleaded guilty to two charges of filming another person’s private parts without consent in his science classroom at Cammeraygal High School in Crows Nest.
But two hours later, Wong was released following an appeal to the District Court.
Eric Wong outside Hornsby Court on Wednesday.Credit: Nick Moir
Wong’s barrister, Peter Givorshner, had argued his client should receive an intensive correction order to be served in the community but Magistrate Alexander Mijovich said “the threshold had been well and truly crossed”.
The magistrate told Wong he had “abused your position of trust and authority with multiple victims” and his actions required “a degree of planning”.
“These occurred in the confines of a school where the victims and their families are entitled to feel safe from predatory behaviour, which this can only be described as,” Mijovich said.
“As a teacher, you were taking photos of parts of their bodies close to them, under their dresses.
Eric Wong, right, arrives at the court on Wednesday morning before being sentenced to 14 months’ jail.Credit: Nick Moir
“This is high-level betrayal, this is not opportunistic.
“Protection of the community and girls at the school ... is paramount.”
Givorshner told the court a psychological report had found Wong had autism spectrum disorder. He said if Wong was jailed, there would be no opportunity for him to get the treatment he needed from a community-based therapy program.
Mijovich accepted that the District Court “may have a different view, they may be convinced”.
Wong’s sentencing had been delayed after counsel sought a mental health evaluation.
‘This is high-level betrayal, this is not opportunistic.’
Magistrate Alexander Mijovich
Prosecutors had previously opposed the application to delay sentencing “primarily for ongoing distress that these matters are causing to the cohort in the community of the relevant high school”.
Givorshner told the court that Wong had developed a habit of using pornography extensively before the offences occurred.
In court documents, police had described Wong’s behaviour as brazen, predatory and opportunist.
The Herald revealed in May that Wong was caught by a 16-year-old female student when the girl bumped into a whiteboard and dislodged a hidden phone in Wong’s classroom.
Eric Wong has pleaded guilty to filming a student’s private parts while a teacher at Cammeraygal High School in Crows Nest.
After the principal was informed and police notified, Wong was charged and he pleaded guilty.
A police search of Wong’s home revealed hundreds of videos and photographs on a computer and storage device of girls in school uniform in his classroom, including images up their skirts and of their breast area.
A police statement of facts lodged in court detailed how, last December, Wong asked a female student to remain behind in the classroom of the co-educational school.
Wong invited the girl to the front of the classroom to his workbench and directed her to his laptop. She walked around to the teacher’s side of the bench, facing the classroom, where she then completed a task on his computer.
“The victim took a step backward and knocked her body into a free-standing smart board,” police facts state.
“When the victim knocked and moved the smart board backward, the victim saw a mobile phone that had been purposely placed on the ground leaning in an upwards position leaning against the smart board fall to the ground.”
Cammeraygal’s principal Kathy Melky stood down Eric Wong from her staff.
Wong then “immediately … leant down to the mobile phone, picking it up and making a comment he left it there previously before class”.
When the girl tried to talk about the phone, Wong “changed the conversation immediately”.
“The victim formed the opinion that the camera on the mobile phone was purposely placed in an upwards position and was filming her whilst standing at the teacher’s bench.”
She left and immediately told a friend.
After the incident, which occurred on a Friday, she told one of her parents on Sunday, and the parent accompanied the girl to school on Monday to inform principal Kathy Melky.
Police were called. Wong was arrested and cautioned the next day. Ten days later, he was arrested and charged. The principal informed the school community that day and Wong was “stood down”.
A police examination of his home computer found 90 videos that Wong made of female students at Cammeraygal High School wearing the school uniform, consisting of a pleated skirt with black, red, white and grey-coloured stripes, a white short-sleeve blouse and school tie.
In the videos, Wong was “randomly walking around his science classroom with his mobile phone camera/video application on and recording”, police said.
Police said Wong targeted only female students.
“The accused walks up next to or behind the female student and whilst talking to them or observing them undertaking their science experiment the accused discreetly positions his mobile phone in position to film private parts (buttocks, anus, groin) underneath the female student’s pleated school dress,” the police facts said.
“In some video files, the accused can be seen talking to the female victims and then glance towards his mobile phone, the mobile phone is then repositioned making sure he is capturing the stated areas of the female body.”
He would also “discreetly position” the camera to record the girls’ breasts and stomach areas underneath the blouse, which is worn loose.
Police also identified 300 photographic files of girls in uniform in class and of their buttocks, groin and breast areas.
“The forensic examination of video files demonstrates the brazen, predatory and opportunist behaviour of the accused, preying on female school students in his science and iSTEM classes,” the police facts state, noting that Wong “is a teacher, a person in a position authority and trust”.
“The accused has breached this authority and trust by his actions and behaviour.”
In her principal’s letter, Melky told the school community that “a serious criminal charge has been laid by NSW Police against a staff member of our school”.
She wrote that “the employee has been stood down and is barred from entering school sites”.
“I understand this news may cause you and your family concern or distress,” she wrote.
Support services were offered.
Wong was responsible for senior prefects and the student representative council and earned praise in school newsletters for organising study workshops for senior students.
Two further counts of possessing child abuse material and one of producing child abuse material were withdrawn and dismissed.
A spokesperson for the NSW Department of Education said: “This behaviour is completely unacceptable. It is against the values of public education and in no way reflects the vast majority of our outstanding and professional teachers.
“We are continuing to provide wellbeing support to the students impacted by this matter. The safety and welfare of students is always our number one priority.
“The teacher was immediately removed from the school and has been suspended without pay since his arrest.”
–with AAP
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