Theatre director is jailed after filming friend getting undressed

Tarran Collins, 24, appeared at Chichester Crown Court and was sentenced to 16 months in prison for voyeurism.

The court heard that as a result of his arrest in March 2015, other electronic media was recovered and 64 indecent images of teenage girls were found.

A further image was recovered from a phone.

Sentencing him, Judge Christopher Parker said: ‘You have caused an immense amount of trouble and upset.

‘She was a friend of yours. You went to her house, her family’s house, under the guise of being her friend and while she was absent from her bedroom you concealed a camera in there so that you could secretly film and record her getting undressed and being naked in the privacy of her own bedroom.

‘You had taken steps to acquire the camera, under an alias, so that you would not be discovered because you knew what you were doing was fundamentally wrong. She did find the camera, but not before it had been operating and filming her getting undressed. You were confronted with what you had done and you denied it.’

HHJ Parker noted that the only mitigating factor was that Collins had undergone some voluntary therapy.

However, taking into an account a previous conviction for twelve offences of making indecent images of children for which he was given a suspended 12 month sentence in 2012, he added: ‘Given the escalation in your offending, the type of offending and the spread of offences here, you do pose a significant risk of serious harm to members of the public, particularly young women and teenage girls, that risk arising from your committing further specified offences.’

Collins, of Shakespeare Road, Worthing, was sentenced to a maximum of 20 months with at least 16 months to be served.

He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for five years.