Court

Man Goes On Trial For Voyeurism
Thur 24th May 2012 , Yellow Advertiser

A MAN has gone on trial for allegedly spying on a naked woman in a unisex changing room at the Basildon Sporting Village.

Glenn Ovenden, 38, of Newberry Side, Basildon, denies the single charge of voyeurism.

He will be tried at Basildon Crown Court by a jury of seven women and five men.

Prosecutor Peter Clark said that on Wednesday, August 17, 2011, a woman had caught Ovenden sticking his head through the gap below her changing room cubicle wall.

Both the woman and her five-year-old daughter were naked in the cubicle at the time.

Describing Ovenden as a 'peeping tom', Mr Clark said he had committed the alleged offence 'for the purpose of sexual gratification'.

The accuser - who cannot be named - said she had taken her daughter and her eight-year-old nephew swimming in the school summer holidays.

Afterwards, she put her nephew in one cubicle to get changed and took her daughter into another.

Mr Clark said: “When it came to the time for [the accuser] to get changed, she removed her swimsuit, dropped it down to her feet. By now she would have been stark naked.

“As she went to kick the swimsuit, she saw part of a face down at ground level, peering into her cubicle, looking at her. She, as you might well imagine, was very shocked.”

Testifying on Monday, May 21, the accuser said she had raised her foot to stamp on the face, telling jurors it was her 'natural instinct', but that the head had disappeared back into the next cubicle.

She said she threw a small towel around her and ran out of the cubicle, confronting Ovenden as he headed towards the changing room door.

She said: “I was full frontal as I confronted him. I was getting quite loud and irate. There was an audience gathering around watching but no-one came to help me.”

She said she went to the Sporting Village reception and 'broke down' as she recounted the incident.

She was taken to a back room and police were called.

Ovenden accepts that he was the man in the next cubicle, but claims he was looking for some money he had dropped.

Mr Clark told jurors that if Ovenden had been looking for money, there would have been no reason for him to stick his head through the gap and look upwards.

Defence barrister Anthony Able said the accuser must be mistaken and that it was actually Ovenden's hand she saw in the cubicle.

Mr Able said: “I'm going to suggest that you have made here a terrible mistake. You may have seen a man's hand and wrist at your cubicle but at no stage was there any head looking at you or at any part of you.

"I'm going to suggest that you jumped to a wrong conclusion.”

The accuser said: “I saw hair, forehead and eyesŠ I did not see any hand at all.”

The trial continues.

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