Paedophile who hid secret camera in teenage girls bedroom for nine months jailed

A South Shields man who used a secret camera to film a teenage girl’s bedroom for his own sexual gratification has been jailed.

Ryan France secretly set up the device at his teenage victim’s home without her knowledge between September 2018 and May 2019.

There he disturbingly captured various clips of the girl including as she was getting dressed and spending time with her boyfriend.

But the 25-year-old’s deception was exposed when another woman spotted the illegal images on his phone and subsequently contacted police.

Upon searching his device further, officers found a series of sexualised chats with other parties which suggested France had the intention of distributing the illicit images that he had stored of his victim.

France, formerly of Callum Drive, South Shields, admitted four counts of voyeurism, three counts of making indecent images of a child and one count of possessing an indecent image of a child with the intent to distribute when he appeared at Newcastle Crown Court in February.

On March 25, he was jailed for three-and-a-half years and placed on the sex offenders register for life.

Detective Constable Kelly Sharp, of Northumbria Police, said: “This case has inevitably caused significant distress to the victim and her family – so it is vitally important that they saw effective justice brought against the perpetrator.

“Ryan France secretly set up the camera in the girl’s home purely for his own sexual gratification.

“She had no idea that he had done this until various explicit images of her were found by another woman on his mobile phone.

“This conviction and custodial sentence was only possible due to the bravery of France’s victim, as well as all the witnesses who came forward and assisted our investigation at every step of the process. They should all be incredibly proud – and this outcome is for them.

“We are committed to ensuring sexual offenders in our community are identified, arrested and brought to justice. We have trained teams of officers who are experts at pursuing paedophiles and ensuring their depravity does not go unpunished.

“We would always encourage anybody who is a victim of crime, or who has any information about this type of offending, to come forward and report it to us.”