Retired Carpenter Took Pictures Up Women’s Skirts With A Phone Strapped To His Shoe
A pensioner who filmed up women’s skirts by strapping a phone to his shoe claims to have been ‘sexually frustrated’.
Anthony Wickham, 67, from Maidstone, Kent, attached his phone to his shoe – which doesn’t exactly sound like the most covert technique in the world – and then tried to strategically place his foot under women’s skirts in shopping centres and supermarkets.
Because he literally had a phone attached his shoe, Wickham was eventually clocked by one woman who confronted him in the Langley Park branch of Aldi.
A subsequent police media appeal led to two of the retired carpenter’s former customers identifying him from published CCTV images.
Aside from the upskirting, his arrest led police to discover three sexually explicit photographs of youngsters aged seven to 14 and footage of an unknown woman using a toilet on his devices.
Police also found numerous Google searches for porn using terms such as ‘upskirt in supermarket’, ‘public nudity’ and ‘no panties’, as well as multiple links to spy camera websites.
On the woman who confronted Wickham, Prosecutor Dominic Connolly told Maidstone Crown Court: ‘She describes how, as she turned round, she nearly bumped into the defendant, who apologised and walked away. She then noticed a mobile phone tied to his right foot with the camera facing up.
‘She confronted him, asked him to show her, and he produced a different phone. She asked for the phone he had on his foot, he refused and left the store.’
In the end, Wickham pleaded guilty to recording an image beneath clothing to observe another without consent, installing equipment with the intent to enable himself to observe another doing a private act for sexual gratification, and possessing indecent images of children.
He described himself as feeling ‘unhappy, isolated, lonely and sexually frustrated’ during his 43-year marriage.
Amazingly, despite even the sexually explicit images of children in his possession, Wickham was given a suspended sentence of six months, as Judge Gareth Branston decided there was a ‘realistic prospect of rehabilitation.’
Wickham will also be made subject to a sexual harm prevention order and sex offender notification requirements for 10 years. He was also ordered to take part in a probation service-accredited programme for 26 days and complete up to 30 rehabilitation activity requirement sessions.
Sounds like he’s got away with one, all things considered. Then again, he has been named and shamed all over the internet and his wife has reportedly since left him, so there is that.
For the man who sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl on a British Airways flight and claimed he mistook her for his wife, click HERE.
