Locations
Pollokshields, G41, Glasgow
Description
A SMIRKING paedo walked free from court after admitting hiding secret cameras in his stepdaughters room to spy on her when she was just 13.
David Brown, 57, smirked as he was spared jail for leaving Zara Montgomery, 19, damaged by taking covert videos in her room in Pollokshields, Glasgow.
He recorded her through a gap drilled in her wardrobe and the keyhole of a chest.
And the creep also videoed her on holiday with a tiny device inside her bedside clock.
Brown was tagged for four months and placed on the sex offenders register after pleading guilty to voyeurism at Glasgow Sheriff Court.
Sheriff Lindsay Wood told him: These were planned.
They led to, you admit, sexual arousal and you taking alcohol to disinhibit yourself.
Your behaviour was utterly shameful.
Its had a profound impact on your victim and her family.
You have a significant sexually deviant problem which needs to be addressed.
Zara who has waived her right to anonymity was eight years old when Brown met her lawyer mum Nadine Allam, 47, in 2010.
The victim discovered his vile scheme by a reflection from a blanket box when she was 15.
The teen was left confused when she played back footage on a Samsung phone which showed him switching it on.
And she later found the handset taped to the inside of a wardrobe door after spotting a hole drilled through it.
Zara would spend hours locked in the bathroom and would stay late at school to keep away from the weirdo.
But she kept the abuse to herself over fears he would turn violent and the discovery would break up her family.
Former taxi driver Brown was finally nailed when the teen bravely confided in her mum in January last year, after the couple split in 2019.
Cops raided his home and found pictures of the girl including images taken by a camera hidden in an alarm clock at their holiday home in Florida.
Zara previously told The Scottish Sun: He did what a dad never should.
Brown, of Cumbernauld, near Glasgow, last month admitted tampering with furniture and hiding his phone to record videos between August 2015 and April 2017.
BIZARRE CLAIM
He also pled guilty to filming Zara in Florida from August to December 2018.
Defence lawyer Jacqueline White bizarrely claimed her client was monitoring the girl for her own safety.
She said: It has taken him quite some time to recognise what he did.
Sheriff Wood spared the pervert a jail stretch because he had no previous convictions but barred him from meeting with anybody under-17 alone.
He added: You should realise what you did for your own sexual gratification caused untold harm to a young lady.
Brown was placed under supervision and ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work.