Man jailed for putting spy cams in James Bond studio toilets

50-year-old sex offender has several previous convictions

Peter Hartley arrives at Aylesbury Crown Court (PA Wire/PA Images)

A convicted sex offender has been jailed for placing a miniature spy camera in the women’s toilets at the studios where the next James Bond film is being produced.

Peter Hartley placed the device behind a grill, would being filming after it was triggered by motion or vibration.

The 50-year-old was working at Pinewood Studios as a maintenance man, when he fitted it.

However, the camera was spotted by a member of the crew working on the new James Bond film No Time To Die.

The young woman said she noticed light reflecting off the camera’s lens, which was similar to that reflecting off the face of a watch. After using a screwdriver to take off the grill, she found the device.

Aylesbury Crown Court heard Hartley had completed a sex offenders rehabilitation programme only eight months before reoffending.

After the woman found the camera, the 50-year-old contacted his public protection officer to say he had reoffended.

He later pleaded guilty on one count of voyeurism at Milton Keynes’ Magistrates Court and on Friday he was sentenced to 16 months in prison. He will also be listed on the sex offenders registry for 10 years.

Hartley has a long history of similar offences.

He was previously convicted of placing cameras in a council building in Coventry in 2009 and for planting one in a leisure centre’s changing rooms in 2016.

He has a total of three convictions for eight offences, although at his first conviction he asked for 113 offences to be taken into consideration.

“I suppose sexual gratification is the main reason – as I’ve learned from my past whenever something bad or stressful happens I act out,” he told police officers.

The young woman who found the camera at Pinewood said she had needed mental health treatment following her discovery.

“I am not eating or sleeping properly and I don’t feel safe anywhere – I check the whole house for cameras,” she said in a victim impact statement. “I don’t doubt that I will check every bathroom I go into for the rest of my life. I don’t believe [the defendant] has any remorse, this was a deliberate act using high definition, wide angle and vibration triggered equipment.

“He knew exactly what he was doing and must have seen the damage [to the victims] last time.”

Jailing him, sentencing judge Francis Sheridan said the victim’s life “has been devastated by a dirty-minded individual who preys on women using the lavatory where he can compromise them”.

He said he hoped the victim’s trauma did not continue, adding that if it did, "it means the perpetrator or voyeurism has won and that cannot be allowed to happen in a decent society.”

Additional reporting by agencies