On the 5th of August, Mr Huang, a former president of the ANU Super Brain Society was sentenced to a 12-month good behaviour order after being found guilty of attempting to capture visual data in an invasion of privacy. Mr Huang was quickly identified by police in June last year, after he left several small spy cameras in ANU showers.
Mr Huang initially denied setting them up, however, images captured by the cameras following their discovery proved this to be false. Despite prosecutor Erin Priestly’s argument that these actions involved a significant degree of premeditation, the Special Magistrate Jane Campbell accepted the defense’s argument that the naming and shaming of Mr Huang was punishment enough.
The court also heard about Mr Huang’s significant academic achievements, his barrister called him a ‘very bright young man’ and argued that his loss would be a pity for the Australian academic community. The Magistrate said that Mr Huang should be very proud of his academic achievement, even though his offences were quite unsophisticated.
As Mr Huang completed his undergraduate degree earlier in the year, a bachelor of Mathematics with first class honours, he is set to return home to China before the end of the month. The Magistrate states that he has good prospects for rehabilitation and there is little need to protect the ACT community from someone who is about to leave the country.
We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the Traditional Custodians of the land on which Woroni, Woroni Radio and Woroni TV are created, edited, published, printed and distributed. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. We acknowledge that the name Woroni was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission, and we are striving to do better for future reconciliation.