Judge doesn’t swallow takeaways claim, convicts lurker

A man said he was walking around the student sector late at night during orientation week because he was trying to lose weight.

The truth was much shadier. Bruce Donald Saxton, 54, was found guilty of burglary after a judgealone trial in the Dunedin District Court yesterday. “Peeping Tom activities,” Judge Thomas Ingram called it.

Saxton was acquitted on another charge.

When police arrested him on February 18, they asked him why he was out strolling about 11pm. He said he had been working late and felt guilty — having enrolled with Jenny Craig — because he had eaten takeaways.

Judge Ingram said the explanation was “highly questionable”.

The court heard Saxton lurked outside a student flat in Ethel Benjamin Place on February 18. A resident said she was on her thirdfloor balcony and saw a man lingering below.

When she returned 10 minutes later, he was still there, she told the court: “He was hanging around near the bedroom window.”

When she saw the flash of a camera twice as he held open a curtain, she called her partner out and they alerted police.

“He was there until police came then he ran through the bushes,” the witness said.

Constable Bryce Johnson said he caught a brief glimpse of a person fitting the description as he arrived on the scene.

He pursued the man to Emily Siedeberg Place, where he saw Saxton “walking quickly”.

Saxton, the court heard, got into his Mitsubishi vehicle and had the engine running when the officer arrived. The officer opened the car door. “He was sweating heavily.

“I could see beads of sweat on his brow,” Johnson said.

He asked Saxton what he was doing. The defendant replied he had been working in the area and had gone for a walk because the streets there were nice and flat.

About 11.20pm, Saxton was arrested and refused to comment on the allegations that night.

There was nothing incriminating on his phone.

However, officers later found a police scanner in Saxton’s glovebox, tuned to the Dunedin police communications channel.

Saxton was sentenced to 80 hours’ community work and 12 months’ supervision.

A Peeping Tom incident had been reported on the same street three weeks earlier.

A student gave evidence she heard footsteps outside her room on January 29 and opened the curtains to see a man holding on to her window sill.

“He kind of just stared for a bit and then walked off quite normally,” the witness said.

However, Judge Ingram said the evidence was not sufficiently reliable for a conviction in that matter.