Peeping tom jailed for filming girls in holiday cottage

A peeping tom who secretly filmed women and schoolgirls undressing at a remote rural holiday cottage was jailed for two-and-a-half years yesterday.

Farmer David Sturgess, 53, was taken away to prison still protesting his innocence.

A judge branded his action a "gross intrusion" yesterday as he passed sentence at Swansea Crown Court.

His comments came after he had heard that Mr Sturgess's victims had felt "violated and angry" at the intrusion into their private moments.

Mr Sturgess rigged up an array of high-tech cameras hidden inside fake smoke detectors at his rural retreat in Llandysul, in mid-Wales.

He then filmed women in various states of undress and also in the shower, on the toilet and shaving parts of their anatomy.

Among his victims were schoolgirls aged 14 and 17 holidaying at the cottage with their families.

A trial at the same venue last month heard Mr Sturgess was able to zoom in on his victims using the hidden cameras and also crank up the volume.

He would also record live images to re-view later "for his own sexual gratification".

Mr Sturgess was found guilty of 12 counts of voyeurism and three counts of making indecent images of children in a two-day trial at the court last month.

During the trial he had refused to take the stand to give evidence in his own defence. The jury went on to take just two hours to find him guilty of all charges. Mr Sturgess is originally from Abingdon in Oxfordshire and moved to the Welsh village to farm a smallholding.

He converted an outbuilding attached to his own farmhouse into a holiday cottage and advertised it for let with the backing of the Welsh Tourist Board.

His secret life unravelled when he split from his long-term partner Teresa Crick, after seven years, who went on to report him to the police.

Officers raided the smallholding in September last year and found cameras hidden in the holiday cottage's bathroom, bedrooms, kitchen and lounge.

The sophisticated array was linked to TV monitors and recording equipment in a room in his own farmhouse.

Police also seized a video which proved to contain recorded images of a dozen victims made throughout 2007.

In evidence Ms Crick had described Mr Sturgess as a "frightening and controlling man".

She had described their sexual lifestyle as swingers and claimed she would sexually gratify him while he watched his secret recordings of guests.

Christopher James, prosecuting, told the court yesterday those same guests had been "distressed, shocked and angry" to learn that they had secretly been filmed by Mr Sturgess.

He said one woman in particular, who had children aged six and three, had spoken of her feelings of "deep upset" that a family holiday she had struggled to pay for had been "violated".