Man who used phone to record girl in toilet avoids jail

Benjamin Edward Woolley, aged 40, previously pleaded guilty to an offence of voyeurism in relation to the incident which took place in Swanage in March last year.

The defendant accepted he acted the way he did for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification by seeing the child doing a private act.

Woolley, whose address was given as Wills Road, Swanage, was back in the dock at Poole Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, January 18, to be sentenced.

The defendant was committed to prison for 18 weeks, suspended for 24 months, with a deputy district judge deeming the offence was serious due to complainant being a teenage girl.

The suspended sentence included a requirement to take part in an accredited 40-day programme.

Woolley was made subject to a three-year restraining order. He was issued with a sexual harm prevention order for five years and placed on the sex offenders register for seven years.

The defendant must pay a £128 surcharge and £85 costs.

As reported, after the complainant discovered the defendant’s mobile in the toilet she left the premises almost immediately.

She told police she was “very scared”, the court heard.

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