Peeping janitor banned from working in toilets

A janitor who was caught filming women using the toilet at the offices where he worked has been banned from going into unisex loos alone for five years.

Jason Prowse, 38, had propped his mobile up on pipework under a bench in the cubicle but was caught out when a friend called.

The horrified victim heard the alert and got down all fours to see her own face on the phone’s screen as it faced outwards to where she had just been sitting.

After hitting the rewind button, she was able to see a Prowse setting the camera in place, Southwark Crown Court heard.

The office worker told jurors she was ‘shocked, humiliated and disgusted because my kid comes to this toilet.’

Kate Fortescue, prosecuting, said ‘An office worker had gone to the loo, wiped herself, stood up and she was walking over to the sink when she heard a buzzing noise.

‘Under the bench directly opposite the toilet there was a telephone, a mobile phone that had been placed in a way, the crown says, that the phone was perfectly positioned to capture the private parts of people going to the loo.’

The victim said when Prowse was confronted by his manager ‘his lips were dry and stuck to his teeth.’

He groaned repeatedly: ‘I’m going to be in so much trouble.’

‘I can’t forget the face – he looked like he was guilty, that’s the best description for it,’ the victim added.

The footage ran for almost an hour and showed at least seven different women using the toilet.

Prowse claimed to have been using the phone’s torch function as he tinkered with the heating element underneath the bench and had ‘forgotten about it’.

He added: ‘I’m not a perv – I wouldn’t do this on my anniversary.’

But Judge Karl King called this a ‘pernicious lie,’ after he was convicted of voyeurism.

He told Prowse: ‘It was clear that these were popular toilet facilities and the images showing the bathroom makes one understand why that would be.

‘I consider it to be an outrageous and despicable act of strategically and deliberately placing your phone in a place where it could not be detected.

‘Your strategic placing meant it was able to record the intimate parts of the people using the facility.

‘One can understand therefore the complete and utter shock and distress the victim would have felt when she discovered the phone.’

There was debate today over the terminology of the pervert’s toilet ban, which he said could interfere with his work.

The judge said: ‘He will be able to go to the local fast food restaurant use their facilities, sit down and have a meal and not be precluded from using those facilities but if he worked there it would be different.’

Prowse, of (10) Conrad Drive, Worcester Park, southwest London, was sentenced to 22 weeks, suspended for two years for voyeurism.

In addition he will be made to serve 180 hours unpaid work, complete a 35 day rehabilitation requirement, sign on the sex offenders register for seven years, pay a victim surcharge of £115 and costs of £2,000.

His five year Sexual Harm Prevention Order precludes him from working in a female or unisex toilet without supervision.

Prowse lives at home with his mum who was at court to see him walk free.

The Sexual Harm Prevention Order says that Prowse is, ‘Not to attend, at any place of work where he is employed or as a contractor, any female or unisex toilet in a building unless accompanied by a third party.’

The order had to amended because it had stated: ‘Not to attend same or unisex toilets in a building.’