SHOWER PERV TAXI DRIVER EXPOSED...
Lodger was harassed after seeing phone balanced on laundry in her bathroom
THIS is the first picture to be published of pervert taxi driver Le Wang who secretly recorded a female student tenant as she showered and then used the footage to harass her.
Sleazy driver Wang – who motors around the city in a 171-registered silver Ford Tourneo – now faces the loss of his taxi licence after he was convicted of harassment.
The 42-year-old, who is due to be sentenced on Thursday, was remanded in custody last week to give him the opportunity to “think about what he did”.
“I want him to look about him and think about what he did in the meantime,” said Judge Martin Nolan, noting that Wang had videoed the woman twice in the shower and was attempting to do it a third time when the victim noticed the phone.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard Wang, of Balally Drive, Dundrum, Dublin, secretly filmed his lodger while she was showering and then harassed her for months.
He pleaded guilty to harassing a foreign student over three months between December 2022 and March 2023.
DISTRESSING
Wang had hidden the phone in a laundry basket balanced on clothes at the foot of the bathtub, the court heard.
Judge Nolan said when confronted, Wang implied threats to disclose the videos and harassed the young woman for three months, which had been very distressing for her.
The court heard that the woman had arrived in Ireland from China in 2021 to study and was offered a room to rent in Wang’s house.
Garda Paul Kane told Jane Murphy BL, prosecuting, that the woman paid €950 for her first month’s rent in December 2022.
She told gardai that when she moved in, Wang started to text her every day, asking her things like what she was up to and whether she would like to go to a bar.
He also asked her to let him know when she wanted to have a shower, the court heard.
On December 20, 2022, the woman was in the bathroom getting ready to have a shower when she noticed the accused’s mobile phone balancing on clothes in the laundry basket.
She immediately brought it to the attention of Wang’s wife, who said her husband must have put it there by accident and gave it back to him.
Wang overheard the conversation and heard the student crying, the court heard.
That evening, he sent her a series of text messages to the effect that she had to move out the next day.
The messages also contained the following threats: “If you make a big deal out of what happened tonight and ruin my family, I have a way of ruining your reputation. You better pretend nothing happened tonight.”
The student moved out that evening. Wang’s wife later rang the injured party and told her she had looked through her husband’s phone and found many videos of her on it.
In the months that followed, Wang tried to contact the student through several social media apps, including WhatsApp and WeChat, a messaging app used by the Chinese community.
The woman always tried to block his contact, and after 18 incidents of attempted conversations, the harassment ended on March 11, 2023.
Wang was asking the woman to come back to the house, asking where she was and saying he wanted to apologise to her.
Gardai seized his phone and found two videos of the woman naked in the shower, taken on December 5 and 10, 2022.
Garda Kane said the videos had been deleted and then restored, and photos had been screenshot from them and shared to Wang’s own WeChat app.
Wang has no previous convictions. A victim impact statement was handed to the judge but was not read aloud.
Garda Kane agreed with Marc Murphy BL, defending that there was no suggestion that the images or videos had been shared with anyone else.
The court heard that Wang cooperated fully with gardai and seemed to suggest to them that his behaviour had been an extraordinary misjudgement or a “moment of madness”.
“Many moments of madness,” interjected Judge Nolan.
Wang came to Ireland about 20 years ago from China and has always worked, the court heard. He is currently self-employed as a taxi driver.
The court heard that a psychological report placed Wang at a low risk of recidivism.