Physio secretly filmed teen using bathroom on hidden camera
A Sydney physiotherapist placed a hidden camera in bathrooms at a home in the city’s west just seconds before a teenage girl undressed and showered.
Andrew Weinzettel, 52, pleaded guilty in Liverpool Local Court on Wednesday to seven counts of filming a person’s private parts without consent.
He also admitted he had filmed a female patient at a physiotherapy clinic in Greenfield Park.
Weinzettel - who was married with children at the time - handed himself in to police in November 2018, the day after a covert camera made to look like a clothes hook was found at the clinic which had a swimming pool for patients to use.
The camera’s memory card held videos of two women - one being the teen - getting undressed and showering, agreed facts state.
Weinzettel told police the recordings were from “easy three to four years ago” and “probably five to six years ago” and had been captured using a different spy camera that was disguised as a remote control for a car alarm.
Police charges list the videos as being recorded sometime between 2015 and 2018.
After his arrest, police raided Weinzettel’s home, where they found more hidden SD cards with his help.
The cards contained further videos of the teenage girl showering at a Cecil Hills home as well as two files of images of her showering.
Weinzettel told police he had put the spy camera in the bathrooms before the girl took showers so he could capture her naked.
In one video his hands can be seen picking up the camera and placing it in one of the bathrooms. He looks directly into the camera before leaving.
A short time later the girl comes in and showers, the agreed facts state.
In another video, the camera is put in place 25 seconds before the teenager takes her shower.
In a recorded interview with police after he was caught, Weinzettel said he regretted what he'd done.
“It was a bad misjudgement. Would I do it again? No,” he said.
‘It cost me my family’
“It cost me everything in my life. It cost me my family, my children first, my business and everything I got.”
Despite these admissions, and the video footage showing him placing the covert camera in the bathroom, Weinzettel initially pleaded not guilty to the charges.
However, as two other charges of filming a person's private parts without their consent were withdrawn on Wednesday, he admitted to the court what he'd done.
Weinzettel’s barrister, Bart Vasic, successfully argued the court had no jurisdiction in relation to a charge of installing a camera as it “had been inappropriately or improperly formed”.
The magistrate agreed the “essential elements” of the charge had not been made out.
Weinzettel is due to be sentenced on October 17.
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