Man who filmed women and children's legs faces camera ban

A pensioner caught filming women and children at a busy shopping centre has been placed on the sex offenders register.

John Kane, 67, filmed more than 60 women in the Central Retail Park in Graham's Road, Falkirk, and at a nearby Tesco store.

He also secretly filmed children playing outside a nearby branch of Next.

On Thursday, solicitor Martin Morrow, defending, told Falkirk Sheriff Court: "I have to concede that a serious sexual element is a reasonable assessment of the situation here. The emphasis was on people's legs."

Kane was caught when he was arrested for drink-driving and taken to Falkirk Police Station on July 22 last year.

There he tried to flush a memory card down the toilet. Police fished it out and found it contained 60 short videos, lasting from 50 seconds to three minutes.

Ann Orr, prosecuting, said: "The recordings appeared to be of adult females at various shops in the Central Retail Park.

"The camera operator has the camera positioned to show the females from the waist down, focusing on their bare legs and zooming in on their bottoms."

Mrs Orr said the memory card also contained three slightly longer videos, each about three minutes, showing children aged six to 12 playing near the Next and Tesco's stores.

One showed a child doing a cartwheel.

She said: "When Mr Kane was in the custody suite he asked to use the toilet. He began acting suspiciously and appeared agitated.

"He was putting his hands in and out of his pockets and the officers thought something was put in the toilet. It was recovered and found to be a Micro SD card.

"The accused was also found to have a mini-camera in his possession, and the card fitted the camera."

The memory card was subsequently analysed by Police Scotland's computer unit and the video footage was found.

In many of the short films, Kane's cream, leather-toecapped trainers and khaki shorts were also in view. These were found after a search of his home.

Interviewed by police, Kane said he "had a drink in him" at the time the videos were filmed. 

Asked if what he had done had aroused him, Kane said: "It did at the time but afterwards I felt ashamed about it."

Kane, from Falkirk, pleaded guilty to breach of the peace. The videos were shot between July 15 and 22 last year.

Sheriff Craig Caldwell deferred sentence until April 13 for prosecutors to draft a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, which is likely to include a camera ban.

The sheriff said: "I could draft it myself, but it really should come from the Crown." Kane was also placed on the sex offenders register.

Last August, Kane was disqualified from driving for four years and placed under social work supervision for two years after admitting driving while five and a half times the limit in Falkirk on July 22, 2016.

It was while he was being processed for the drink-driving offence at Falkirk police office that the memory card was found.