A Church of England vicar has walked free from court after admitting using secret cameras to spy on and film intimate pictures of three girls and a woman.

Reverend Richard Lee, 49, was handed an eight-month jail term, suspended for two years, at Bristol Crown Court yesterday after admitting eight counts of voyeurism and 18 counts of making indecent images.

The offence took place over a 10-year period, in Weston-super-Mare where he was a priest in the diocese of Bath and Wells, and also in Gillingham, Kent.

Judge Neil Ford, QC, said: “I have agonised about my public duty in this case. While sentences of imprisonment must be imposed, they can be suspended.”

Outlining the case, prosecutor Richard Posner said: “For 10 years, Richard Lee has been watching young girls. This was at a time when they believed, thought and trusted they had privacy. This was all for his sexual gratification. He breached the trust... and undermined the faith his community had in him.”

The court heard Lee, who was suspended from his post when he was arrested in July last year, used secret cameras to spy on his victims, but was found out when the pictures were spotted on his laptop.

Following police searches of the Locking vicarage in Somerset and churches, officers seized some computer equipment and found 400 category one images – the least serious – and 84 movies of the same category. High-tech examination of computers seized also revealed 51 category two images, three category three and four images and one category four movie.

He also searched for images of child abuse on the internet, the court heard, although there was no evidence to suggest any of the material was shared with anyone else, while most of it was likely deleted, the judge said. He moved from Kent to work at two churches in Somerset. Lee previously officiated at All Saints’ Church in Hempstead before leading the congregations at St Augustine’s Church in Locking and St Mary’s Church in Hutton.