'Peeping Tom' filmed women and girls changing

A "classic peeping Tom" who hid a spy camera in a changing room to film women and girls getting changed has been jailed for three years.

Thomas Milton, 32, also secretly recorded two women in their homes and used AI to make sexual pictures of children, Teesside Crown Court heard.

One of his victims said he had violated her privacy in the "worst way imaginable".

Milton, from Eston in Redcar, had denied wrongdoing but was found guilty of five counts of voyeurism, and admitted making indecent pseudo-photographs of children.

Milton, who worked as a school theatre technician, bought the camera, which looked like a USB stick, from TikTok, and set it up in a changing room to secretly record teenage girls and women on a number of occasions, prosecutor Charlie Thompson said.

He also filmed two different women in their bedrooms with hidden devices, the court heard.

One of the women, who was recorded stripping naked from the waist down in her home, said Milton had "violated my privacy in the worst way imaginable".

She said it was several months before she felt safe to be in her home again and her confidence had been devastated, adding she still felt as if she was being watched.

Upon being told by police what he had done, the woman said she felt "sick, violated and utterly disgusted", adding: "I couldn't breathe, I felt overwhelming feelings of panic and betrayal."

The other woman filmed unwittingly in her home by Milton said he had destroyed her sense of safety and she had to move house as a result of his actions.

Milton also repeatedly used AI to make sexual images of children, uploading photographs of clothed teenagers and asking the software to make them naked, Mr Thompson said.

Judge Richard Bennett said Milton "harvested" the "perfectly innocent" images the youths had shared on their social media, and the case highlighted the risks of people posting pictures of children online.

In relation to the voyeurism, the judge said it was a "gross violation" of the victims' privacy, adding Milton had shown no genuine remorse.

Noting Milton was called "Tom" by those who knew him, the judge told him: "You are the classic peeping Tom who spies on young women and teenage girls for your own sexual gratification."

He said Milton knew exactly what he was doing, adding: "You are clearly highly intelligent but equally manipulative, deviant and dishonest."

Judge Bennett said Milton's claim that he got no sexual gratification from his actions was "palpable nonsense" and the offender had a "total failure to grasp reality".

Milton will also have to sign the sex offender register for life and comply with a sexual harm prevention order restricting his access to children and use of the internet.

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