Students targeted by Peeping Tom
A PEEPING Tom spied on female students with a telescope after working on lifts at their flats.
Voyeur Steven Elstob had carried out work for a lift installation company at the site when he found out certain rooms offered a direct line of vision into adjacent blocks.
The 46-year-old kept hold of keys and started visiting the student accommodation in his own time, sneakily watching girls getting undressed for kicks.
A court heard he did it between 10 and 15 times in the space of four weeks and it “became something of an addiction”.
Students eventually spotted him coming out of a room they believed to be unoccupied, and after a short police chase he was arrested.
Elstob, from Jarrow, was found to have a bag containing a brass telescope in three pieces and a key for the student accommodation.
Now he has been given a community order at Newcastle Crown Court after he admitted a charge of voyeurism.
The judge also ordered that his telescope must be destroyed.
Elstob, of Durham Drive, Fellgate, Jarrow, admitted voyeurism and possessing a small amount of amphetamine which police found at his house after his arrest.
He was given a threeyear community order and must attend a sex offender group work programme and sign the sex offender register for five years.
The court heard he has a previous caution for similar behaviour, involving a 15-year-old, in 2005.