HMS Ocean sailor Paul Opie who is on bail at Plymouth Crown court after pleading guilty to 16 counts of various sexual crimes including voyeurism
DEVON, UNITED KINGDOM – Paul Opie, 36, used his mobile phone to take short video clips of the female crewmen as they used a shower block on the quayside at the HMS Drake naval base, Plymouth, Devon.
The engineering mechanic was caught after filming his own face by accident as he aimed his camera downwards from the ceiling, at a naked woman sailor.
Plymouth Crown Court was told he used his knowledge of the building and his engineering skills to find a void space inside a wall of the block where he filmed the rest of the clips over six months.
Opie, a father of three, who was jailed for two years, was a petty officer aboard the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean. He will now be dismissed from the Navy after an 18-year career, the court heard.
He admitted seven offences of voyeurism involving seven Wrens at the base, and eight unrelated offences of making or possessing child pornography.
Judge Francis Gilbert, QC, told him: “You placed a mobile phone in a toilet block so you could secretly film a female Royal Navy colleague changing her uniform.
“You then made six more movie files using a void space you discovered which gave you the opportunity to film secretly as female colleagues dressed and undressed in the changing room.
“They were identified from the films and are now aware of what you did. In each case you filmed their private parts and transferred the files to your laptop so you could enjoy looking at them.
“The outrage and distress which your victims felt is both obvious and understandable.”
Andrew Maitland, prosecuting, said police found the images on Opie’s computer when they investigated child pornography case allegations.
He said: “He inserted his camera phone in the washing ablutions section of the shore base at Devonport’s number 10 dock when his ship HMS Ocean was tied up alongside.
“He discovered there was a void at the back of a wall. One of the clips was taken through the ceiling and the others through the wall.
“In the clip from the ceiling his face actually appears facing up into the removable section from which he photographed straight down.
“Those filmed are angry at the violation of their privacy.”
Mr Maitland said police also found 56 child pornography images on Opie’s computer including one of a naked young girl who was tied up and being threatened with a weapon by a slightly older girl who was also naked.
Nick Lewin, defending, said Opie’s wife had left him as a result of the case, and he would now lose his career and his pension.
He said: “Clearly the photographs were for his own sexual gratification. He cannot understand how he found excuses for his behaviour which he knows to have been desperately wrong.”
Courtesy Telegraph: United Kingdom
Tags: Crimes, Kinks & Fetishes, Nudity, Pervarchy UK!, Voyeurism