Kentish Express Ashford & District
Pervert used camera to spy on woman in shower
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This is the Ashford computer repairer branded a pervert for stashing a secret camera in the bathroom of a woman just before she showered.
Pensioner Sydney Berry admitted hiding the tiny spy camera in a medicine box, but claimed he did it as a joke.
However, a jury at Canterbury Crown Court rejected his account and convicted him of voyeurism.
He will now be sentenced next month.
Wheelchair-bound Berry, 67, of Butt Field Road, Singleton – who denied the charge – said it wasn’t done for sexual reasons claiming he is impotent.
His victim told the jury how she discovered the device shortly before showering in June last year.
She said: “I was shocked. I was dumbstruck. I didn’t know what to say. At first I thought I was seeing things and I immediately grabbed my towel.
“Then I returned to the box because I was curious. I just didn’t think it looked right. I opened it up.
“Once I realised it was a camera and realised what was going on, I knew that I needed to speak to someone,” she added.
She said the camera had been concealed in a medical packet which was used for acne.
The victim added that she had moved the packet the previous day but when she went into the shower saw it once again on the shelf.
“I thought it strange it was there again.”
Alastair Walker, prosecuting, told the jury: “The allegation of voyeurism involves the installation of camera equipment by the defendant into the victim’s bathroom so that he could watch her showering.
“She turned on the shower but she found the box, which had once contained medication, and noticed a shiny black spot on the side.
“She looked inside and found the camera. She could see a little blue light flashing.”
Mr Walker said she threw the camera in the bin and covered it with her pyjamas before retrieving the secret device later and taking it to a friend’s house.
The jury were shown two videos which were on the camera showing Berry positioning the camera so it would record anyone in the bath.
The victim later confronted Berry about the camera who claimed he had planted it there secretly “because he was curious”.
Berry, who wasn’t in a wheelchair at the time of the incident, told the jury he had stashed the camera “to wind her up.”
He said he had bought the camera for £8 and it could be used to record video and still images.
After being confronted by the victim and her friend he told the jury: “They called me a pervert.”
He told the jury: “This wasn’t a sexual thing. I can’t have sex with anyone.”
And he denied being “curious to see what she looked like without her clothing”. Three men have been arrested after a group of suspected illegal immigrants were seen running from a lorry park in Sevington.
A concerned onlooker called police when he saw the five men running towards the nearby drive-through McDonald’s near the Ashford Truck Stop.
The man, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “It’s really shocking, I sympathise that they are trying to avoid death from their own countries, but the UK Government need to act now and sort this mess out.”