Spy camera in Bond studio toilet

A “dirty-minded individual” who hid a spy camera in the ladies’ toilets of the studios where the latest James Bond is being filmed has been jailed.

Convicted sex offender Peter Hartley used a miniature camera triggered by motion and vibration, positioning it behind a grill in the WCs at Pinewood Studios to try to record women on the lavatory on June 21.

Hartley, who got a job as a maintenance man, was caught after a freelancer working on No Time to Die noticed the light reflecting from the lens similar “to light reflecting off the face of a watch” and used a screwdriver to take off the grill. He was jailed at Aylesbury Crown Court on Friday (September 6) for 16 months and will be on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

Prosecutor Daniel Wright told the court the device was marketed as a “spy camera” and Hartley had used a piece of tape to cover its LED light to try to stop it being detected.

Hartley, who has a history of similar offences dating back to 2008, contacted his public protection officer at the Met Police later that morning to tell him he had reoffended.

He has previous convictions for placing cameras in a council building in Coventry in 2009 and for placing one in the changing rooms of a leisure centre in 2016.

The 50-year-old has a total of three convictions for eight offences, although at his first conviction he asked for 113 offences to be taken into consideration. When asked by police why he had placed the device in the Pinewood toilets, he said: “I suppose sexual gratification is the main reason - as I’ve learned from my past whenever something bad or stressful happens I act out.”

Hartley, of Uxbridge, said his partner had been in hospital undergoing tests for cancer when he committed the offence.

He later pleaded guilty to one count of voyeurism at Milton Keynes Magistrates’ Court.

In a victim impact statement, the young woman who found the camera said she had needed mental health treatment and had suffered from acute anxiety.

She added: “I don’t believe (the defendant) has any remorse, this was a deliberate act using high definition, wide angle and vibration triggered equipment.

“He knew exactly what he was doing and must have seen the damage (to the victims) last time.”

The court heard Hartley had completed a sex offenders rehabilitation programme only eight months before reoffending.

He claimed it had made him worse by “opening a Pandora’s box” in his mind.

Jailing him, judge Francis Sheridan said the victim’s life “has been devastated by a dirtyminded individual who preys on women using the lavatory where he can compromise them”.

Peter Hartley