An undercover policeman who discreetly recorded a woman changing before taking a shower on his iPad was sentenced to jail.
Kieran Ball, 30, a member of the British Transport Police (BTP) who was stationed in Coventry at the time, set up the contraption on a house’s bathroom windowsill.
On June 10th, 2021, the victim discovered the iPad while getting ready for the shower.
According to testimony given at Warwick Crown Court, it had been filming her for over six minutes, including when she started to undress.
She took a video of the iPad on her mobile phone and reported the incident to the authorities.
Warwickshire Police seized Ball’s mobile devices and the British Transport Police suspended him.
Ball never accepted any wrongdoing, insisting he was using the iPad to ‘pleasure himself’ as officers accused him of voyeurism.
In April earlier this year, a jury at Leamington Crown Court found him guilty of voyeurism and, following an accelerated misconduct hearing the following month, he was fired from the force.
Police bosses said Ball’s actions amounted to gross misconduct.
He was sentenced to 12 months behind bars on Friday and handed a restraining order banning him from contacting the victim or being within 100 metres of her home.
Ball will be on the Sex Offender’s Register for the next decade, a judge also ruled.
Deputy Chief Constable Alistair Sutherland: ‘Ball is a convicted sex offender who attempted to invade a woman’s privacy in a space she had every right to feel safe in – so it is absolutely right that he’s been punished for the abhorrent crime he committed.
‘He has clearly undermined the thousands of BTP officers who day in and day out work tirelessly to protect women and girls, and rightly hold themselves to the highest standards of integrity whether they are at work, at home, or anywhere else.’
DCC Sutherland stressed that the police did not seek disciplinary action against Ball after the incident came to light for fear of it ‘prejudicing the criminal proceedings’.
‘Achieving the right outcome for the victim was something we cared very strongly about,’ he said.
‘His actions are entirely inconsistent with our values,’ DCC Sunderland added, ‘and there is clearly no place in our force for individuals who behave like him.’