By ANEEKA SIMONIS
A FORMER Berwick Secondary College teacher who used a hidden camera to film up female students’ skirts has been released on bail pending a sentencing appeal.
Marinko Jankovic, 61, fronted Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on Thursday 18 June where he was initially sentenced to six months’ imprisonment after entering a guilty plea to knowingly producing and possessing more than 100 pornographic images of children under his care.
Magistrate Julie O’Donnell later granted Jankovic bail, with his appeal to be heard at the County Court on Friday 14 August.
The court heard Jankovic covertly captured sexually explicit images of the female students using a pen cam that he strategically placed near his desk before calling the girls, all under the age of 18, to the front of the class between 2011 and 2013.
“He would summon the students to the front of his classroom and direct them to stand in a specific location in order to have the child placed in the best position to capture images underneath their dresses,” read the charges summary.
The court heard Jankovic also took the camera around his classroom and positioned it and himself so he could film up girls’ skirts and dresses while they sat at their desks.
Police uncovered Jankovic’s stash of child pornography after his school laptop was seized by staff on Thursday 7 March.
The laptop was scanned by the school’s IT department which uncovered a number of sexually explicit upskirting images, leading to Jankovic’s arrest.
Police later searched Jankovic’s home on Friday 8 March where dozens of pornographic images taken by Jankovic were found on different digital devices.
Police said 137 female students were captured in the 106 digital files taken by Jankovic, but were unsure how many different girls were victims of Jankovic’s two-year upskirting scandal.
Magistrate O’Donnell described Jankovic’s behaviour a gross breach of trust that had devastated the Berwick Secondary College community.
The court heard Jankovic was assessed as having a low to moderate risk of re-offending and did not believe his offences were driven by sexual motivation.
School authorities knew of the allegations in March 2013 when Jankovic was immediately stood down but it took almost two years to tell students they may be victims.
Jankovic was initially sentenced to six months in jail with a two-year community corrections order.
However the sentence was suspended until his appeal was heard.
Jankovic will remain listed on the sexual offenders’ register for the next 15 years.
