For more than ten years, an employee of the City of Geneva working in the technical department of the Grand Théâtre installed hidden cameras in the institution’s ladies’ changing rooms. He was not just a passer-by: he had been working there for decades. The police arrested him at his home in May. When they searched the property, they found thousands of images, some of an explicit nature, which could affect hundreds of women. The investigation also points to toilets and changing rooms at other locations outside the theatre. He has been suspended without pay ever since. Around twenty victims have lodged formal complaints, as have the theatre itself and Geneva City Council.
What is hard to understand is that a hidden camera had already been discovered in that very same ladies’ changing room back in 2014. The incident had no apparent consequences for the employee. Eleven years later, another camera, the same location, the same suspect. Several local media outlets are already asking what happened between 2014 and 2025, and the organisation has no answer that convinces anyone.
The events of 2014 may be time-barred. Those of 2025 are not. Nor are those in other places mentioned in the investigation. The Grand Théâtre de Genève is one of the country’s most iconic cultural institutions. The fact that something like this could happen there, for such a long time, says something about what happens when a warning sign fails to lead to any real consequences.