A trusted child care assistant, who secretly filmed up young girls' skirts while supervising them and also installed a secret camera in the ladies toilet at a suburban nursery, was jailed for twelve months today.
James Hoffman, 32, of Purley Knoll, Purley also secretly recorded three young children in his next-door neighbour's garden splashing about in a paddling pool.
He pleaded guilty at Croydon Crown Court to eight charges of voyeurism for his own sexual gratification and four counts of possessing eight indecent internet photograph's of children.
Hoffman was arrested after a 16 year-old female student at Wallington's Gaytime Nursery (pictured) discovered a secret camera hidden in the ladies toilets on May 23.
"She discovered it because when she opened the door the recording devise fell to the floor," said prosecutor Miss Shahnaz Ahmed. "The investigating police officer described it as sophisticated in nature and difficult to install.
"She contacted staff and the next day all staff members, including the defendant, were questioned and he admitted placing the device, not to record children, but adults and did this because he was lonely and did not have a girlfriend."
The voyeurism counts relate to video recordings - one filmed under a desk - taken between 2000 and 2005 of children aged between five and eleven years-old at an after-school club at Stanley Park Infants School.
Other recordings include twenty-five minutes of children, aged 4 - 11 years-old playing in his neighbour's garden - the youngest, a boy, was naked and the two girls were simply wearing their pants - plus footage of youngsters and staff in the toilet at Gaytime Nursery.
Police were called and a laptop containing numerous files was seized at the £600,000 detached home Hoffman shares with his mother.
"One of the files related to the sixteen year-old girl who discovered the device," explained Miss Ahmed. "It contained four video clips of her using the toilet and she could be identified from the images.
"There were further video clips in which other women are shown using the toilet."
Police also found the Stanley Park footage Hoffman had filmed several years earlier while in charge of children as young as two years-old.
"The camera is positioned very low down so all the activity at floor level can be filmed.
"One clip centres on one girl with an Alice-band sitting cross-legged on the floor and at one point when she gets up you can see her underwear.
"There is further footage of a female child's legs and of her blouse button undone and there are images of another girl's underwear," added the prosecutor.
Hoffman filmed another girl's underwear for a full minute and up the skirt of another for four minutes.
When confronted by his boss at Gaytime the defendant sobbed: "I've never had a relationship. I'm lonely."
His lawyer Ronnie Malik submitted his client suffered from Asperger's Syndrome, explaining: "He has low self-esteem, low confidence. His social skills are very poor, he's a loner and had been bullied."
Judge Daniel Flahive told Hoffman: "You were in a trusted position and you had been working for a number of years as a classroom assistant with very young children.
"You used sophisticated equipment by way of a camera and a recording device to take pictures of children and your adult colleagues."
Hoffman will have to sign the Sex Offenders Register for a period of ten years.
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