A man who filmed a pair of horrified sisters as they tried on bikinis in a supermarket changing room has been placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years.
Benjamin Meyer plotted for weeks to carry out the sordid act and finally secured the video footage on his wife’s iPad on August 13 last year.
The 30-year-old admitted to social workers that he had taken the device into Asda in Perth “in the hope that an opportunity might arise”.
He held his iPad over the top of a changing room cubicle as the sisters, aged 18 and 22, stripped off to try on a number of swimsuits.
Meyer took around three minutes of footage without raising any suspicions and then left the scene for around five minutes.
He returned a short time later to capture more footage of his victims only to be spotted by the young women this time.
They fled from the cubicle and sought out security staff, who found that the accused’s actions had been captured on CCTV.
He was soon traced by the police, having used a card showing his identity when he bought goods from the store, but had deleted the files from the iPad by the time he was arrested.
Defending Meyer at Perth Sheriff Court yesterday, solicitor Linda Clark said her client had no previous criminal record and was in a long-term relationship, adding that there was no real explanation for his conduct other than immaturity.
She claimed there was no premeditation for the offence and produced for the court a character reference from Rev James R Newell of Crieff Baptist Church, where Meyer has been a member of the congregation since November 2012 three months after the offence was committed.
In it, Mr Newell said Meyer’s “misdemeanour” was “reminiscent of some misplaced adolescent activity, rather than the example of a man” and described it further as “foolish”.
But Sheriff Lindsay Foulis dismissed any suggestion that the offence had been “spur of the moment or a stupid wheeze”, given the far more frank admissions made by Meyer to social workers.
“This appears to have been planned,” the sheriff said. “He told social workers that he took the device into the supermarket in the hope that an opportunity would arise.”
Depute fiscal Robbie Brown told the court: “The witnesses’ attention was attracted by a red light on the iPad. They told security staff what they had seen and they contacted the police before carrying out a review of CCTV footage.
“It showed five instances of filming, each between 12 to 30 seconds, before he briefly leaves the adjoining cubicle.”
Meyer, of Gavelmore Street in Crieff, admitted using the tablet computer to secretly record images of the two women in Asda, Dunkeld Road, Perth on August 13.
In addition to placing Meyer on the sex offenders register, Sheriff Foulis fined him £1,000 and ordered forfeiture of the iPad.