Magistrate Louise Taylor slams pooing public pool pest Deane Roach for 'disgusting disregard'

Deane Richard Roach, 44, was sentenced in the ACT Magistrates Court on Wednesday afternoon to two years in jail.

Magistrate Louise Taylor ordered the disability support pensioner to serve a non-parole period of 14 months.

Roach, of Holt, pleaded guilty to 12 charges following a series of incidents Ms Taylor said were the sort that "overwhelmingly offend and repulse the community".

The magistrate described many of the 44-year-old's crimes, committed between June and September last year, as "deliberate" and "blatant".

They began with Roach standing nude, in "a proud stance", in a pool at Club Lime ANU as a horrified teenage girl swam past him to perform a tumble turn.

The regular churchgoer subsequently claimed he did not know he had to wear clothes, and that all of his had been stolen along with his car.

Roach later exposed himself to two Arthritis ACT employees at Aqua Harmony in Kambah, where he did hydrotherapy sessions following a back injury.

He also swam in see-through underwear and defecated in the water there, callously telling staff the pool was "dirty" and in an "unacceptable" state as he left.

The pool had to be closed for one-and-a-half days for cleaning, with Ms Taylor saying "the defendant was blatant in his disgusting disregard" for others who missed out on using it.

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Roach's bad behaviour went beyond aquatic environments when an Arthritis ACT boss's email about his conduct prompted him to stalk her for about a week.

Ms Taylor said the "furious" 44-year-old had repeatedly lurked near the woman's office and intimidated her staff while demanding to speak to her.

Roach also masturbated in the Erindale Active Leisure Centre before continuing his reign of repulsion at a Stromlo pool, where he "played with his crotch" in front of a lifeguard, exposed himself to young children and stood "entirely naked" in a thoroughfare.

In other incidents, he took off from the Stromlo Leisure Centre one day without paying, saying "I'll be right for today", and drunkenly urinated inside the Coles supermarket in Greenway.

Ms Taylor said Roach's guilty pleas demonstrated "some level of remorse", but she said he had carefully left out key details in "limited" expressions of contrition.

The 44-year-old had, for example, spoken of being sorry for wearing "skimpy bathers", though he neglected to mention some of his more serious crimes in a letter to the court and conversations with a psychologist.

His behaviour in jail, where he had continued exposing himself while on remand, was described as "unsatisfactory".

Ms Taylor found that Roach's alcoholism had played a role in his offending, and that the "impulsive" man had not been purely motivated by sexual gratification.

She said both he and others must be deterred from committing "distressing and disturbing" crimes, while she also had to consider factors like Roach's rehabilitation.

The magistrate ultimately imposed the jail sentence and a combined total of $10,350 in fines, which Roach was given no time to pay.

Having already served a considerable period behind bars, Roach will become eligible for parole in March 2022.

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