A DISGUSTING voyeur followed schoolgirls around the streets with a camera on his shoe – capturing images and videos of their underwear.

Paul Anthony Mountain also set up a camera in a lavatory and recorded a woman while she was on the toilet.

Burnley Crown Court heard how Mountain had been lodging with friends in Accrington when the images were found. 

Prosecuting the case, Charles Brown said that on one occasion Mountain had followed a schoolgirl into a shop and stood behind her in the queue, intentionally placing his shoe camera so he could see up her skirt.

He said: “When the police examined the laptop they found a number of video recordings, comprising upskirt videos that he had recorded of schoolgirls by placing a camera on his foot and following them around.

“Having attached the shoe, he walked along the streets and footage showed up the skirts of unidentified female school children aged between 11 and 16.”

The court heard how the people Mountain was lodging with became suspicious of him and decided to search his bedroom while he was out, finding the images. They did not go to the police.

Later after the couple had moved out of their Accrington home, the woman’s brother returned to the house to collect some furniture.

Once inside the house he discovered a mattress in the living room and an open laptop. He looked on the computer to try and find out who it belonged to when he found the images and called the police.

Mountain, now of Trentham Avenue, Farnworth, was arrested and denied having anything to do with the offending, saying that he had found the computer in a skip.

Defending his client, Joe Allman said: “This is behaviour that really harks back to a particularly dark point in his life which you will see was marked by offences which one commonly sees associated with Class A drug addiction.

“In fact he was in the grip of an amphetamine addiction and was living alternately between the addresses of friends' and the shed of the family home as his relationship with the mother of his children was breaking down at the time.

“It was, to put it simply, a rather wretched existence and at that time, in that chaotic lifestyle, he succumbed to the temptation which he had and he has to accept the consequence of that.

“That said, the last couple of years show some cause for optimism. I am instructed that he has very much turned his life around.”

The court heard how the 45-year-old has since moved to Bolton to care for his brother, who has limited mobility. Mr Allman suggested that his brother would be left without a carer should he be imprisoned.

Sentencing him, Mr Recorder Nicholas Clarke QC said: “You are 45 years of age, you have led a life of crime for almost all of your adult life, you have an appalling record, including 62 previous offences.

“Although none of those are for sexual offences, they do demonstrate an inability by you to comply with rehabilitative orders in the past. There is a history of you breaching almost every court order that has ever been made.”

Recorder Clarke QC added: “You had a long-standing interest in such activities - it is clear from your internet history – there were refences to ‘teen up skirting in public’ and the like. You had saved the video recordings over a long period of time.

“Completely separately in the second count, you secreted a camera in a lavatory.

“Clearly, that was another activity, just as the first one had been, that required technical knowledge and a high-degree of planning so that you could set the cameras to record that which you wished to see. It is not surprising that she was disgusted by what you had done.”

Mountain was jailed for 18 months.