A Dundee student who secretly filmed up women’s skirts using a camera hidden in a rucksack escaped jail after a sheriff told him the maximum sentence was too short.
Craig Forbes (38), Balgarthno Terrace, videoed the women’s underwear after he sneaked up on them in the city centre on August 9.
Forbes admitted that, in Overgate and High Street, with the intention of enabling himself to look at the images, he concealed a camera within his rucksack and recorded images of the underwear of various unknown women under their skirts.
At a previous hearing, depute fiscal Lisa Welsh told the court security guards in the Overgate had seen the fine art student acting suspiciously.
They found his camera within his rucksack, examined it and saw the covert video images. Police were called and he was arrested and charged.
Ms Welsh told the court: “There were eight videos taken of female legs. All the women were wearing short skirts or dresses.
“One piece of footage lasted 53 seconds, which showed the accused walking up behind a female wearing a short skirt and positioning the camera in such a manner that her underwear was apparent, which showed he had moved very close to the woman.”
After being cautioned and charged, she said, his reply to police was that he had done it for “a bit of titillation.”
His agent said Forbes was a genuine first offender with no previous convictions and was “thoroughly ashamed” of his actions.
“He realises the gravity and seriousness of the offence,” he said, and his “only explanation was it was an opportunist thing, not a course of conduct.”
Sheriff Way had called for background and restriction of liberty order reports including a Tay Project assessment and said: “No convictions doesn’t mean out of character.”
When Forbes appeared from custody on Wednesday, Sheriff Way placed him on a three-year community payback order, with 100 hours’ supervised unpaid work, and ordered him to allow police and social workers access to his cameras and computers at any time to check for illicit content.
He also placed Forbes on the sex offenders register for three years.
He said: “You have pled guilty to a disturbing offence with a significant sexual element. The distress you must have caused to the women whose intimate privacy you violated must be obvious to you.
“You admit you were attempting to derive some kind of sexual thrill. The report I have makes it clear that you require an extensive course of therapy.
“You face a summary complaint and so the longest period I could imprison you for is eight months of which you would only serve four months and then you would be released.
“In my opinion you should be supervised rigorously for years and not months, and therefore I have determined that a comprehensive community sentence will more adequately protect the community.
“The punishment element will be unpaid work. You will co-operate with counselling and your use of photographic equipment will be monitored.”
He added: “If I thought my sentencing powers in relation to imprisonment were adequate to ensure you got the help and supervision you need you might find yourself in jail. As such, I am giving you the maximum possible community payback order.”