Kentish Express Ashford & District
Couple secretly filmed women in changing rooms
A UK Border Force agent and his girlfriend secretly filmed women in toilets and changing rooms for their own “perverse sexual gratification”.
Neil Adams and Stephanie Whitehead used mobile phones to capture the footage during a years-long campaign that would see multiple victims later identified by police.
Adams, 40, even videoed women as they used toilets at the Port of Calais and Dunkirk Ferry Port.
The couple’s offending was only uncovered after one woman spotted a hidden mobile phone as she used a loo with her young child.
Prosecutor Kieran Brand told Canterbury Crown Court: “The victim reports that as she bent down to pull up the child’s underwear she saw the sunlight on a camera lens.
“She had located a mobile phone wrapped in a microfibre towel, facing the lavatory.
“She saw that the phone screen was displaying what the camera was viewing and the red light showed it was recording.”
Whitehead, 40, was complicit in the making of the covert tapes, and also captured women in various states of undress in the changing rooms of clothing stores and a swimming pool.
“One victim is filmed topless in a changing cubicle,” continued Mr Brand.
After police were alerted, the couple's home in Ashford was raided and digital forensic analysis of their phones and computers revealed the extent of their disturbing crimes.
Across many videos taken between 2014 and 2020, the pair were even caught red-handed on camera in the mirrors of changing rooms or placing and collecting the devices.
Police were able to identify 12 victims, some of whom revealed how distressing it had been to learn they had been secretly filmed.
One said: “I feel repulsed every time someone wants to take a video of me - it makes me feel sick to my stomach.”
Another added that for a period after the horrible revelation she stopped drinking or eating so she would not have to use the toilet.
Adams and Whitehead, who together have a young son, pleaded guilty to 11 and seven counts of voyeurism, respectively.
Adams also admitted making an indecent image of a child and sexual assault.
The court was told that in 2014 he crept into a woman’s bedroom and touched her sexually without consent.
Prosecutor Mr Brand said: “She felt her duvet cover moving. It was a gradual movement, and the duvet cover was rising.
“The next thing she felt was a hand on her right leg. It was then a stroke with a full hand on her knee up and down a couple of times.
“She turned her head and saw Neil Adams. He was sitting on the floor and looking at his mobile phone.”
Adams and Whitehead, both of East Guldeford in Rye, appeared in the dock together for sentencing earlier this month.
Mitigating, Nicholas Maggs said Whitehead had pleaded guilty to all matters at an early stage of the case and has no previous convictions.
Adams also admitted his guilt at the earliest opportunity, except for the sexual assault charge, which he initially denied but later accepted ahead of trial.
Mr Maggs said: “They both fully understand the effect that these offences have had.”
Speaking of Whitehead specifically, the lawyer added that the focus of her life has been a part-time job and taking care of the couple’s son.
“If she were to be sent to prison that would mean her child would have to be homeschooled due to where they live and where the school is,” he explained.
“She is very remorseful for what happened.”
After lengthy deliberations, Recorder James Lofthouse said he was just barely convinced that giving Whitehead an immediate custodial sentence would impose undue harm on her son.
But for Adams, he said time behind bars was the justifiable punishment.
Adams was jailed for 28 months, while Whitehead was given a 12-month custodial sentence suspended for two years.
Adams was suspended from his role as a Border Force officer in September 2019 when bosses were made aware of the police investigation. He was subsequently dismissed from his role in July 2021.