VOYEURISM is the act of gaining sexual pleasure from watching others carrying out a private act.
It is a crime under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and can lead to prison sentences of up to two years by itself.
Here are some of the people who have been sentenced at Reading Crown Court for this very offence of the past few years.
Michael Walker, of Harvey Place, Andover, was locked up in July 2022 after he set up covert cameras in order to film a teenager showering and getting undressed.
Earlier this month, Reading Crown Court heard how Walker’s offending, which took place between February and August 2020, was uncovered by police after they found the 36-year-old’s depraved messages about recording the girl on Twitter.
They traced the Twitter account’s IP address back to Walker and arrested him at his Bracknell residence.
Officers secured his devices and found that Walker had filmed the 15-year-old getting undressed after setting up secret recording equipment.
Located on Walker’s devices were:
- 8 indecent videos, two of which were deemed to be the most explicit kind
- 14 videos of extreme porn
- 67 indecent images and two images of extreme porn
- Chat logs that showed Walker had shared images of the girl with other Twitter users
- Images of the girl that had been altered to include other lewd content
- A video of Walker performing a sex act with pink underwear
- Chat logs of sexually explicit conversations with a Twitter user who claimed to be 13-years-old
In a victim statement read by prosecutor Alex Radley, the girl said: “For days on end after I found out I struggled and put on a brave face.
“I did not want to take a shower. All I wanted to do was cry for hours and hours. I just couldn’t believe it.”
His Honour Judge Nawaz, passing sentence, said the offences showed a “different side” to Walker.
Walker was handed a 32-month prison sentence for three counts of making indecent images, one count of distributing indecent images, and one count of voyeurism. He will serve half of this in custody before being released.
The Andover man will have to sign the sex offenders register for ten years.
A highly-respected hospital consultant had 'issues with sexual entitlement' after secretly filming sexual scenes with a tiny camera hidden in his spectacles.
The gynaecologist also set up covert cameras to record his sex encounters with a student nurse girlfriend.
Details of the NHS and private medicine expert's exploits were revealed to a judge in June 2019 when consultant Jomo Mathurine was sentenced at Reading Crown Court.
Mathurine had set up multiple hidden cameras at his victim’s student accommodation, where they would meet for casual sex.
When his 19-year-old victim found out her middle-aged lover had secretly made more than 100 clips of her and other women, sometimes during sexual acts, he had told her he would “take her down” using the media as leverage, the judge was told.
The 49-year-old obstetrician and gynaecologist was a well-respected and senior consultant at the hospital where they both worked, the court heard, so she felt afraid to report him to the police.
While based at the East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, Surrey, Mathurine had worked as a visiting consultant at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, Berkshire, which was where he met his victim - a student nurse.
The prosecutor added: “The victim became concerned the defendant was accessing her personal messages. He confirmed in fact he had been.
"The victim saw a graphic video on the consultant's iMac of her performing oral sex on him at her flat in Reading, which she did not realise had been taken.”
Mathurine was arrested at his family home on December 10.
When police did access his material, the prosecutor said, they found 15 still images and 96 video clips, some of the victim and others of other women, some of whom were members of staff at the hospital where Mathurine worked.
The judge jailed Mathurine for 14 months and made him subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 10 years which prohibited from making any image with a woman as the subject without her prior consent.
A former member of the Hurlingham Polo Association pleaded guilty to three sexual assaults on children under 13 years of age, one count of voyeurism and five counts of making and possession of indecent images of children when he appeared at Reading Crown Court in 2015.
The man, formerly of Bracknell Road, Warfield, was first arrested on May 12, 2014, on suspicion of having indecent photos of children.
It was not until police examined his laptop that they found footage taken by Mclaren-Tosh of the attacks on his three young victims.
He was arrested again on February 23, 2015, for the assaults and voyeurism offences where another examination of his laptop found one further sexual assault he had filmed as well as more indecent photographs and secretly-filmed footage.
The assaults took place between April and August 2014, while the charges of voyeurism and indecent images relate to a period from January to August 2014.
He was sentenced to five years in prison in June 2015.
A 55-year-old man was jailed for 24 months in 2015 after a jury convicted him of voyeurism, outraging public decency and neglect.
Ramon Munoz, of Mill Lane, Colnbrook, had faced 13 charged during a three week trial at Reading Crown Court.
He was acquitted of six charges of rape, one charge of sexual assault, two charge of administering a substance with intent and one charge of voyeurism.
But the jury found him guilty of three charges.
Munoz was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment for ill treating or neglecting a vulnerable person and three months for outraging public decency - to run consecutively. He received an 18 months sentence for voyeurism - to run concurrently, making a total of 24 months in prison.
A pervert who filmed a 14-year-old girl getting undressed on a webcam years before sexually assaulting was spared jail in 2021.
Matthew Hewitson, of Woodlands Road, Guildford, was also caught with dozens of indecent images of children and extreme pornographic images while residing in Bracknell.
Hewitson was caught by police when alerted to the download of an indecent image at his address in February 2020.
After being arrested, he admitted possessing the indecent images and confessed to a range of other offences.
Alan Gardner, prosecuting, said: “He told officers he had set up a webcam in his spare room [at his old residence] in Addlestone [Surrey].
“Initially he had set it up to watch cats. But he told police he had caught three people getting undressed and said he used that footage to masturbate to.”
One of the people filmed getting undressed was a 14-year-old girl.
The court heard how, years later, Hewitson groped the girl at an event when she was 18 and again asked her if she was “horny”.
Sentencing, Judge Norton handed Hewitson a 14-month prison sentence suspended for two years.
Hewitson was also given a sexual harm prevention order for ten years.
The Surrey man, who pleaded guilty to sexual communications with a child, sexual assault, three counts of possessing indecent images of a child, three voyeurism offences and one count of possessing extreme pornographic images, was sentenced at Reading Crown Court on Friday, May 7, 2021.
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