The details of this occurrence and the quotations are cited from CBC.
A new article published by CBC provides updates about a serial voyeur on the UBCO campus. As of early March, a major update has been made: the voyeur, a UBCO student by the name of Sari Siyam, is now being criminally charged in court.
This follows a previous article also published by CBC that exposed a serial voyeur on campus and the initial display of unprofessionalism by the RCMP in this case.
To provide some background into this case, in March 2020, a woman by the alias Taylor was filmed under a stall in the commons gender-neutral bathroom. Upon attempting to press charges with the RCMP, she was dissuaded from doing so by Const. Ryan Routley who claimed this could ruin Siyam’s future and said he likely would not re-offend.
"[Routley] mentioned having good values, like family values," said Taylor.
Taylor did not press charges at this time.
However, according to Global News, “Taylor wanted Siyam to face repercussions for his alleged actions, so she pursued a misconduct file at the university. Taylor said that’s when UBC Okanagan officials got involved, putting pressure on police to take another look at the case.”
As a result, in early May, Taylor had received an email from a different RCMP officer, Cpl. Tania Carroll with the sex crimes unit in Kelowna. Carroll emailed Taylor wanting to reach out to her about her “recent complaint.” Carroll had taken over the case after some university staff expressed their concerns with Routley’s comments. Carroll expressed to Taylor that she did not agree with Routley’s comments about the suspect’s character, like their credentials. During one of their meetings, it was also revealed in Siyam’s confession to the RCMP that he filmed numerous other women. Taylor once again decided to pursue charges against Siyam claiming:
"I did feel anger because I literally was laying awake for weeks thinking, 'Oh my God, I'm going to ruin this person's future. I'm ruining someone's life," she said."I had no idea that this had happened to … other people."
Sari Siyam now faces a charge of voyeurism and is expected to appear in court in April.
Following the first CBC article, UBCO released a statement saying the following, “While we work closely with the RCMP on a variety of matters, we cannot comment on the administrative processes of any external entity. Nor can we share information about any particular complaint so as to protect the privacy of our students, faculty and staff.”
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