Maida Vale student cleared of voyeurism
Jurors heard friend asked him to secretly film sex romp
THREE students accused of secretly filming a sex romp involving a female scholar as a ‘funny prank’ were cleared of of voyeurism yesterday (Wednesday).
Shabar Hussain, 21, of Sutherland Avenue, Maida Vale, and Lemar Garcia, 20, from east London, hid under the bed of 24-year-old George Iaponas and filmed him having intercourse with the woman.
The act is said to have taken place in Iaponas’s room at the University of Westminster halls of residence where they all studied.
Snaresbrook Crown Court heard that when the horrified woman discovered Garcia and Hussain had been under the bed, Iaponas suggested a ‘threesome’ and later threatened to upload the movie on social networking site Facebook if she reported him.
Iaponas had told jurors he invited Garcia and Hussain to hide under his bed on February 17 last year after wooing the student through Facebook.
He said: “I think I was just being big headed and I wanted to prove a point that I can get the girl if I want.
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“I told [Garcia and Hussain] this was going to happen, [that] me and her were about to have sex in my room.”
Iaponas said his friends gave the game away by ‘laughing their heads off’ while he had sex with the woman, prompting him to offer her a ‘threesome’.
Garcia and Hussain said they only took digital stills of each other laughing and giggling but prosecutors claimed all three gained ‘sexual gratification’ from filming Iaponas.
Garcia admitted uploading footage to his laptop computer.
But the trio insisted the incident was just a ‘prank’.
On Tuesday, all three men, who were expelled by the university, were cleared but Judge Martyn Zeidman branded their behaviour as disgusting.
He added: “I hope that the defendants have learned a lesson - women must be respected.”
