April 2011

Pervert caught leering over boys at swimming pool jailed

A pervert caught leering at boys changing at a Kingston leisure centre has been sentenced to three years in prison.

The father of a 12-year-old boy noticed Paul Spelman, 42, a registered sex offender, looking over the wall of his son’s cubicle at the Kingfisher leisure centre, Fairfield Road, on Sunday, November 14, last year.

Spelman, who was wearing swimming trunks, ran away after the father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, warned his son someone was watching him.

Speaking outside court after the case, the father said: “It turned out he had been going in and out of cubicles, and when he noticed my children going into their locker, he moved to the one next to my son.

“Thankfully, my son was oblivious to what went on.”

Kingston Crown Court heard Spelman had a string of similar convictions dating back to 1987.

In one incident in September 2009, he drove alongside a coach of children on the M25, removed his clothes while still at the wheel and started masturbating in front of them.

Spelman, of Eversley Crescent, Isleworth, admitted two counts of voyeurism and was found guilty of two breaches of an existing sexual offences order on Thursday, March 3. He was sentenced on Wednesday, April 13.

He was banned from being seen in public in his underwear.

Judge Fergus Mitchell said: “You can’t control yourself and rather than controlling yourself you clearly planned these visits to this swimming pool.”

A sexual offences prevention order made at an earlier hearing included a ban on entering changing rooms, beaches where children were changing, or being alone in vehicles not directly traceable to him.

Judge Mitchell said: “He is very determined in his desire and lust to be near children and expose himself, and be close to where they are naked or vulnerable.”