B.C. man guilty of hiding cellphone and recording a group of 10- to 12-year-old girls in hockey locker room

A 23 year old man has pleaded guilty to one count of secretly observing or recording for a sexual purpose after hiding a phone and recording a dressing room full of 10-12 year old female hockey players in British Columbia. He now awaits sentencing.

Garrit Charlie Ciardullo was employed as an arena worker at Beaver Valley Arena in Fruitvale, BC when he hid the device in the ceiling of a girl's dressing room for the purpose of recording them changing. The girls reportedly found the phone themselves and alerted parents who then contacted police. 

Yesterday the court heard victim impact statements from the girls and their parents, ahead of next week's sentencing.

“The safety of that space is something I thought no one could take away from me or my teammates, but you have managed to do that,” said one of the statements.

“Looking back now almost two years ago it still brings back those awful feelings that I felt,” added another. “Some of us breaking down in tears because we were so scared and worrying about the what-ifs,” the court heard.

Ciardullo's defence is that he was depressed and addicted to pornography, but he did not knowingly record minors. He claims that he did not know minors would be in the room at the time of the recording. However the Crown's position is that Ciardullo had access to the arena schedule and acted with full intent to record minors for sexual purposes.

Outside of court, one of the girls' Fathers made it clear that he's not buying Ciardullo's defence or that he's remorseful in any way.

“An apology letter was read today, it didn’t seem very genuine, and it was very generic in nature,” he said.

“I definitely made an attempt to look him in the eyes as I was stepping down from the stand and he didn’t even have the decency to look up. so for that reason, I didn’t really identify any sort of remorse that he expressed at all.”

Crown is seeking a prison term of 6 months, while Caridullo's lawyers are seeking a conditional discharge with no criminal record.