A man who filmed up women’s skirts in a Tesco store after attaching his phone to a shopping basket admitted to a court he had been a “silly boy”. Karl Anthony Berger, 55, was arrested after a horrified shopper spotted him targeting women as they bent over or reached up to the display shelves.
He then went upstairs to the store’s cafe to look over the footage before police arrived, Somerset Live reports.
He fled the café area and went the wrong way down a travelator and was eventually caught.
The unemployed former area manager confessed to what he had done adding that he had been “a silly boy” and may have taken some “surreptitious” photographs.
Berger, from Rame Cross Penryn, Cornwall, pleaded guilty to outraging public decency between February 13, 2017 and July 3, 2018 in Yeovil, England and elsewhere in various public places.
He also admitted being in possession of 8.95 g of cannabis (class B) at Penryn on July 2, 2018 when he appeared before Somerset Magistrates at Yeovil.
Prosecutor Suzie Butler said a subsequent search of the defendant’s home address was conducted and officers discovered some green vegetable matter in a drawer in his bedroom which was confirmed to be 8.95g of cannabis.
Berger’s iPhone was also seized and a number of videos were found on it filmed at various locations and up a number of different women’s skirts.
When he was interviewed by police the defendant made no comment but said he had previously worked as an area manager for a cleaning company and travelled around the South West as a requirement of his job.
For outraging public decency the magistrates sentenced Berger to a two year community order with a requirement to take part in the Horizon Programme for people who have committed a sexual offence.
He was also ordered to comply with a 15 day Rehabilitation Activity Requirement and carry out 80 hours unpaid work.
They imposed a one year conditional discharge for the cannabis offence and imposed costs of £85 and an £85 victim surcharge. A destruction order was also made for the defendant’s iPhone.