Foot fetish pervert filmed girls as young as eight
A MAN with a foot sex fetish was caught filming girls as young as eight in an Aldi store.
Kristian Stephan, 38, also made recordings in Solihull town centre.
He avoided jail after pleading guilty to two counts of outraging public decency and was given a three-year community order – the highest non-prison sentence magistrates could impose.
Birmingham Magistrates’ Court heard Stephan, of High Street, Aldridge, filmed the legs and feet of girls “for sexual gratification”.
He was first spotted acting suspiciously in Shirley’s Aldi store on April 19 this year. Staff initially suspected him of being a shoplifter.
A PCSO was asked to watch him before staff spotted Stephan on CCTV “filming a child of around 12 years of age from the waist down”.
The court heard the incident was reported to police but Stephan was not detained at the time.
On May 5, a security guard at the Boots store in Solihull’s Mell Square saw Stephan bending down near two girls aged around eight and 11, filming them from the waist down on his phone.
David Devine, prosecuting, said: “He approached Mr Stephan. The guard said he felt shocked and outraged as he has nieces of a similar age.”
Magistrates heard that Stephan told him he was doing “nothing wrong” and planned to “delete the video anyway”. He walked out of the store but was detained and arrested by police called by Boots staff.
Mr Devine said Stephan admitted both offences to police.
He also admitted his motives.
“He did it for his own sexual gratification. He told police he had a sexual fetish for feet and finds it hard to control his sexual needs.”
Stephan, who declined legal representation in court, told magistrates: “I apologise sincerely. I am having counselling and just trying to change my life around. I went bankrupt. That’s not an excuse but I was in a rut.”
He told magistrates he was seeing a psychiatrist and working ten hours a day.
“It is horrendous what I did. I have never done anything like this before,” he said.
Stephan challenged part of a presentence report. “The report says I am going to be a threat to society but I am not a threat to anyone. I have already promised many people this is not going to happen again.”