Peeping Tom in Canada on student visa gets jail time

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Imagine an international student from India was caught spying on his housemates while they were using the toilet.

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Would you sentence the first offender to house arrest, as both his lawyer and the prosecutor insisted, so that poor 20-year-old Peeping Tom wouldn't have to face any immigration consequences?

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Or would you send this freak to prison?

In August 2024, Aswin Sajeevan moved into Barry's house with 11 other residents. Despite being on a student visa, he worked as a line cook after being suspended from a college computer programming class for poor grades. He occupied a bedroom in the basement next to the bathroom used by the women in the house.

“VIEW HOLE” IN THE WALL IN THE BATHROOM

On March 11, 2025, one of the male tenants found Sajeevan crouched in the basement laundry room with the lights off and peering through a peephole in the wall into the bathroom. At this time, one of the women was naked and using the facilities.

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At first, Sajeevan tried to insist that he was just looking for his headphones, which obviously made no sense since he was in complete darkness. The next day, when confronted by all his housemates, he admitted that he had been spying on women using the toilet for six months and recording them on his phone and laptop.

The group deleted the recordings and contacted the police.

On July 17, 2025, Sajeevan pleaded guilty to four counts of voyeurism. The Crown sought a suspended sentence of 12 months' imprisonment in the community – a request eventually joined by the defence.

The prosecutor told Barry to Judge Craig Brannagan this prison was not necessary for a young first-time offender who faced deportation if sent to prison.

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Each of his four victims filed statements in court: one said she had lost trust in friends, had to take time off from work and “It felt like (she was) living in a nightmare and it really felt like hell.” They all said they were scared, worried and felt like they were being watched. No one will use a public toilet anymore.

“The emotional and psychological harm caused is palpable,” the judge wrote in his recent sentencing. “I believe that Mr. Sajeevan’s crime has had a significant and lasting impact on his victims.”

Brannagan acknowledged that the Supreme Court of Canada warned that The joint submission of the Crown and defense should not be easily dismissed by the sentencing judge.

But this was a time when it was needed, he said.

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VOYEURISM IS A “SINNER” CRIME

“Crime voyeurism sinister. It is a crime when an offender violates the personal integrity, safety, security and privacy of his victim without the victim knowing he is being watched in what would otherwise be considered “safe areas,” Brannagan wrote.

“When a voyeuristic act is recorded on video, as was the case in this case, the perpetrator can use and reuse the spoils of his act of violence, often without the victim's knowledge, for whatever purpose he chooses.”

The judge rejected the Crown's argument that house arrest would protect the public because Sajeevan committed his crime while at home and still does not appear to understand the seriousness of what he did.

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“It was more than just curiosity; this was sustained predation,” Brannagan concluded. “The joint position now proposed is, in my opinion… disproportionate to the gravity of these crimes and the moral responsibility of this offender.”

Then the judge actually took into account how the rest of us would look at it.

Sentencing him to a suspended sentence on these facts, he said, “would cause an informed and reasonable member of the public to lose confidence in the institution of the courts.”

And that's what we would do.

Instead, the judge sentenced Sajeevan to five and a half months in prison – and hopefully he will return to India soon after that.

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