A pervert caught peering under a Fife swimming pool cubicle as a 12-year-old girl got changed has been punished with unpaid work.
Krzysztof Sawa was previously convicted after trial of voyeurism at Fife Sports & Leisure Trust’s Levenmouth pool.
The 37-year-old appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court for sentencing this week.
Sheriff Timothy Niven-Smith told Sawa to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work as part of a community payback order as a direct alternative to imprisonment.
The sheriff also placed him on the Sex Offenders Register for five years.
Man ‘looking under’ stall
Sawa’s victim told a trial in January she and a friend had returned to the pool’s unsegregated changing rooms following a swim in October 2021.
She said they noticed a man wearing black Speedo bottoms “wandering about”.
As the girl dried herself in a cubicle, she dropped the towel to her feet and noticed a shadow from the gap below.
She saw the man’s eyes, nose and mouth as he looked through at her.
The girl said: “He was on his hands and knees, looking under”.
The girl shouted her friend’s name and: “What the f**k, oh my god, this guy just looked under the stall”.
Her friend, then aged 13, was in a nearby cubicle and heard her scream out, describing her as sounding “scared”.
The friend told the trial she saw the Speedo-wearing man walking away.
The court heard the man entered the pool after the incident and his victim spotted him swimming.
The girls reported what happened and police were called.
A pool manager who spoke to the girls said the victim seemed “distressed” and was crying.
She said Sawa was pointed out by the girls as he walked into the changing rooms.
Although the victim did not pick out Sawa from an identification parade six months later, her friend did.
‘Fixing Speedos’ claim
Sawa, of Glazebrook Road in Leicester, told the trial he is an accountant by profession but is currently working as a lorry driver.
He said he had already been in the pool and went into a cubicle to adjust his swimming trunks as they “became a bit loose”.
However, he claimed he quickly fixed his trunks, did not pay attention to whether people were in the cubicles next to him and strongly denied ever looking under the partition.
He said he had overheard mocking voices saying: “Polish, Polish”.
The fiscal depute told Sawa he was suggesting the children had been mocking him and asked him how they would know he was Polish, particularly after he confirmed he did not speak to them.
Sawa said they may have heard him saying a Polish word or heard him speaking to a cleaner who had told him to go another way to avoid a puddle in the changing rooms a short time earlier.
The fiscal also suggested Sawa knew there was no CCTV in the changing rooms as he had volunteered to tell police there were no cameras at the time.
Sheriff Timothy Niven-Smith found Sawa guilty of the charge.
The sheriff said the offence is a contravention of section 26 of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009, regarding voyeurism towards a young child.
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