A supermarket driver who secretly filmed down female customers' tops or up their skirts when they bent over to pick up deliveries was caught after one woman turned the tables on him.
And when Richard Phillips was traced and arrested, the police discovered he had also been taking pictures up women's skirts at a Nuneaton car boot sale.
Phillips, aged 36 of George Eliot Avenue, Bedworth, pleaded guilty to four charges of voyeurism, one of outraging public decency and one of possessing indecent images of children.
He was given a three-year community sentence by a judge at Warwick Crown Court and ordered to take part in a three-year sex offenders' programme and to register as a sex offender for five years.
Prosecutor Ian Windridge said the police were contacted in June last year by a Coventry woman who reported that her Asda delivery driver had been using a small camera to film her.
She explained that when the driver had been delivering her groceries the previous week, she had noticed that as well as his PDA (personal digital assistant) pad, he also had 'a camera gadget' in his hand.
Suspecting what he was doing, she set up a camera herself in her home when her next Asda order was due to be delivered.
Her camera captured the driver filming her as she bent down to pick up her groceries – and she passed that evidence to the police.
Officers contacted Asda who confirmed the driver who had made that delivery was Phillips, who was then arrested.
"He was initially interviewed, and fully admitted that he had filmed down female customers' tops with the hand-held device when they bent forward to pick up the grocery items from the delivery basket," said Mr Windridge.
Phillips was bailed, and the police then examined computer equipment they had seized from his home.
There were images taken at an address in Coventry where Phillips had filmed up a woman's skirt, again as she was bending over while he was making a delivery.
"Full examination of the equipment shows a total of 71 files of images of doorstep deliveries; and some images show the delivery paperwork, allowing identification of addresses.
"The images concentrate upon breasts and legs. This was all done covertly, and without the consent of the deliver customers," Mr Windridge pointed out.
There were further images filmed at a car boot sale, believed to be at Furnace End, Nuneaton, showing views up women's skirts – reflected in the charge of outraging public decency.
Mr Windridge said the police also found five video images of under-16s, mainly showing them exposing their breasts, as well as 'up-skirt footage' downloaded from the internet.
Anthony Potter, defending, argued that although sentencing guidelines indicated a 'starting point' of six months imprisonment for the voyeurism offences, a community order would be a more constructive way of dealing with Phillips, who had no previous convictions.
And sentencing Phillips, Recorder Peter Cooke told him: "It's pretty sad to see an individual like you in court. I am sure you are thoroughly ashamed of what you've done.
"Your sexual predilection manifested itself by you abusing your position as a delivery driver and photographing women in an inappropriate way.
"But you are not, in my judgement, a person who must immediately go to custody. The programme proposed should work to stop any further descent into the abyss."
Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2016 12:53 pm