Court

Man Acquitted Of Voyeurism
Thur 7th June 2012 , Yellow Advertiser

A BASILDON man has been acquitted of voyeurism.

Twelve jurors unanimously agreed than Glenn Ovenden, 38, of Newberry Side, was not guilty of spying on a naked woman in a changing room at the Basildon Sporting Village in August last year.

Giving evidence in court, the woman said she and her five-year-old daughter had been naked in a locked cubicle after going swimming.

The woman claimed she looked down and saw Mr Ovenden's face looking at her through the gap beneath the cubicle partition.

She told jurors his head had been facing upwards with his eyes and the bridge of his nose showing.

Testifying before jurors, Mr Ovenden insisted that he had been kneeling with his head at least one foot from the ground, reaching for a pound coin he had dropped.

He said it was impossible for him to see the accuser or for her to have seen his face.

Jurors were shown photographs of a reconstruction which Mr Ovenden claimed showed that he could not physically fit his head through the gap.

They were also taken to the swimming pool to conduct their own experiment.

During the course of the trial, two applications by prosecutor Peter Clark were turned down by Mr Recorder Greene, who presided over the case.

Mr Clark was not allowed to include in evidence before the jury a comment Mr Ovenden allegedly made to a police officer before his arrest, which he later denied.

Mr Clark told the judge that PC Grant Hawkins approached Mr Ovenden on the day of the incident after recognising him from the woman's description.

He wrote in his notebook that he asked Mr Ovenden if he knew why he was being approached and that Mr Ovenden responded with words to the effect of: “I was in the changing room. I dropped money on the floor and I bent down to pick up my change and I saw a young girl.”

Recorder Greene ruled that the comment was inadmissible because Mr Ovenden was not under police caution when he said it.

Defence barrister Anthony Able complained that the comment had not been put to Mr Ovenden in his first police interview and pointed out that he had denied making the remark when he was asked about it in a second interview with his solicitor present.

Speaking about the second interview, Mr Able said: “He makes his position crystal clear, that he didn't say anything about seeing a young girl.”

In a later hearing, Mr Clark attempted to introduce a previous sexual offence committed by Mr Ovenden into evidence.

Mr Clark said: “In December 2000, when the defendant was aged 26, he either indecently or sexually assaulted an adult woman without her consent. This took place in a friend's house in a bedroom which he did not have permission to enter. The defendant admitted what he had done.”

Mr Clark said Mr Ovenden was jailed for the offence.

Mr Clark said the prior offence was relevant because it included an “invasion of personal space,” but Recorder Green ruled that the conviction was too old and dissimilar to be mentioned.

Mr Ovenden, who wept as the verdict was read, thanked jurors as they left the court building.

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