A college sports coach in Ghent who secretly filmed dozens of female students in the changing rooms and posted videos on voyeuristic websites risks up to 30 months in jail.
Prosecutors demanded the 30-month penalty, with the possibility of deferment, for a man in his forties identified as Mike DB, who worked as a martial arts coach in the sports club of a Ghent professional college, according to De Standaard.
Local authorities were alerted at the start of last year that several voyeuristic videos of women in the sports club's changing rooms appeared online. In March 2018, police searched the man's house and he was arrested and jailed provisionally for a month.
Following the man's detention, he acknowledged his actions, saying he had referred to the women he filmed as "teens" on the online platforms used to publish his videos, and it was revealed that he has the father of a teenage daughter.
The college, the non-profit involved in the sports club's organisation and the man's victims have filed a civil lawsuit, but the man's defence is hoping to get a suspended sentence.
The accused, who said that he now saw what he did as "reprehensible," according to HLN, is reportedly requesting a probatory suspended sentence, saying that he has been going to therapy since his arrest and he "is no longer the same man of March 2018."
A court is expected to rule on the man's case on 21 October.
Gabriela Galindo
The Brussels Times
