City should investigate ways to prevent, detect hidden cameras: councillor

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This article was published 19/06/2015 (3986 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A city councillor promises stepped-up security measures after another individual has been caught placing video recording devices in a civic swimming pool.

Coun. Jeff Browaty, chairman of the protection and community services committee, said he is disturbed by news reports that an admitted child molester had surreptitiously placed a video camera in a washroom at the Pan Am pool.

“The allegations of secret video recordings in change rooms at city facilities is obviously very troubling,” Browaty (North Kildonan) said.

Browaty’s comments come after a former popular radio DJ Christopher “Shecky” Elwick, pleaded guilty recently to eight charges involving incidents between 2008 and 2013, including sexual assaults against two boys and secretly videotaping children.

During a court appearance a week ago, Elwick, 34, admitted to planting a recording device at the Pan Am Pool during a six-month period.

The city of Winnipeg adopted a policy in 2005 that prohibits the use of recording devices in all change rooms and locker rooms in city-owned and operated recreation, leisure and community centre facilities.

Posters have been placed in all change rooms, in French and English, stating the use of recording devices, including cell phones, is prohibited.

But that hasn’t stopped people like Elwick.

This is the second time cameras were illegally used in a city swimming pool. In 2012, a City of Winnipeg swimming instructor was caught on video by a tiny camera hidden inside a women’s staff change room at the Seven Oaks Pool. The camera was designed to look like a pen and was hidden in a feminine hygiene disposal box when the instructor spotted it.

Browaty said he’ll move a motion at the June 29 committee meeting, instructing the administration to come up with a plan to stop and detect the hidden cameras.

“I’ll be introducing a motion asking the department to prepare a report on what measures are taken in other jurisdictions, both in terms of preventing people from using camera phones and visible (recording) devices, as well as if and how scans are done to discover hidden cameras,” Browaty said.

The court was told last week that all of the video recordings made by Elwick had been seized by police and none had been posted to the Internet.

Elwick is in custody and is expected to be sentenced in October, following the preparation of several court-ordered reports.

 

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca