Locations
Milldale Road, Kettering, NN15
Description
A pervert driving instructor sexually assaulted a pupil and filmed students while they were taking lessons in his car.
Adam Bagshaw, who ran A to B Driving School in Kettering, told one student she should start an Only Fans account and that she should sell her used underwear online.
Moving statements from his two victims read in court said that they had been left traumatised by what had happened to them.
He appeared before Northampton Crown Court on Thursday (February 22), watched by more than a dozen friends and family of the victims, where he was told by a judge that he would be going ‘immediately’ to jail.
The 56-year-old had pleaded guilty to voyeurism, harassment and sexual assault at a previous hearing.
The court heard that Bagshaw, formerly of Milldale Road, Kettering, had previously been a mechanics lecturer at Tresham College and also styled himself as a freelance photographer.
But he was unmasked as a pervert after police received a call from one of his students outlining disgusting sexual comments he had made to her during and after her lessons.
When he was arrested police seized his mobile phone and found videos on it which he had covertly filmed during lessons. He had filmed the legs of young students who were wearing skirts and turned his camera on their behinds as they got out of the car at the end of the lesson.
Officers managed to track down one of his victims who had no idea that he had been filming her.
The public gallery was cleared as four clips found on his phone were shown to the court.
In her police interview one victim described Bagshaw as ‘a bit weird’ and told police that he had suggested she got an Only Fans account. He told her that she would make ‘good money’ if she sold her used underwear online.
He then told her he’d invented a new device to stop bra straps from falling down and felt her back and neck as he described to her how it would work. He had also tried to engage her in a discussion about a video of an underage woman unknown to the victim.
In her victim impact statement read by prosecutor Sally Hobson, the woman said: “It makes me sick. It’s disgusting what he’s done.
“It feels like a pit in my stomach. It’s so creepy. I’m now scared to have more driving lessons with another male instructor.”
Another victim told the court in a statement that when she had first started lessons with Bagshaw he had said to her ‘What’s said in this car stays in this car’.
“I started to dread it,” she said.
“My parents had paid for my lessons and I didn’t want to disappoint them.
“He made comments about my age and what I was wearing.”
Bagshaw had also asked her about sex toys and about her love life and had made comments about her tummy, leaving her paranoid about her weight.
The woman said that she had failed her test twice as she was so worried about what was going on. When she found a new instructor she had to start from scratch.
She said that even now she would rather take the train on long journeys than get in a car and drive.
The woman had managed to get some therapy to help her deal with what had happened to her but she could not go through with it because the therapist was bald and had glasses, like Bagshaw.
She added: “I’m so worried when there’s silence because I think about what he’s done to me.
“No matter what sentence he’s given, no matter how s**t his life becomes, it won’t compare to the impact on me.
“I want him to know he’s a piece of s**t and I hope he’s miserable for the rest of his life.”
In a letter to the court, Bagshaw said he wanted to ‘sincerely apologise’ for his actions and that he had sought counselling to try to tackle his own behaviour.
He also said that he had changed his job and was now an HGV driver trainer.
Mitigating, Siobhan Cawkwell, said: “This is a result of his own stupidity.
“He’s split up with his wife and he’s lost friends. He’s only got himself to blame.
“Most of the people in his life have turned their backs on him.”
She said that Bagshaw had moved away and was now living in temporary accommodation.
Her Honour Judge Adrienne Lucking KC said to Bagshaw, who wore a blue suit and stared straight ahead during the entire hearing: “You were teaching them in circumstances where they should have learned an important life skill without any concern about your behaviour.
“[One of the victims] had to identify herself from a video she had no idea had been taken. It’s caused her very substantial distress.”
Sentencing him to eight months in prison, of which he will serve half before release, Judge Lucking added that she could not suspend his sentence. She said: “Driving instructors are in a position of trust.
“The public must know that driving instructors who commit sexual offences will go immediately to prison and that’s what will happen today.”
Bagshaw will also be placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years and will be supervised by the probation service for one year after his release from HMP Peterborough.