December 18,2025
RED FM News Desk
A grocery store on Vancouver Island has agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by women who were secretly recorded in a bathroom by a former employee, with the footage later uploaded to a Russian pornography website.
The lawsuit was brought by former employees Jennifer Burke and Mallory Colter against Red Barn Market and Matthew Schwabe, a former assistant manager who was convicted of voyeurism in 2021.
In a ruling issued Dec. 8, the B.C. Supreme Court in Victoria ordered Schwabe to turn over all recordings involving the plaintiffs and ruled that full worldwide copyright of the material now belongs to them.
The investigation began in 2016 after allegations emerged that women were being filmed in the washroom at a Saanich, B.C., location. Schwabe was charged in 2019 and later pleaded guilty to unlawfully observing and recording eight women, as well as illegally publishing intimate images of nine women.
He was sentenced to 15 months in jail followed by two years of probation.
The court ordered Red Barn at Mattick’s Ltd. to pay $750,000 within 14 days. The settlement includes $85,000 for each of five women whose images were shared online, $25,000 for one woman whose images were not distributed, and an additional $15,000 each for Burke and Colter as representative plaintiffs.
The remaining funds will go toward legal costs, which will be reduced by $25,000 for every additional victim identified whose images were recorded but not published.
The plaintiffs say they will donate part of their settlements to charity in recognition of unidentified victims of Schwabe, who declared bankruptcy in 2018.
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