Paul Baird 39

Description

A secret stash of covertly recorded indecent images of children and footage of a woman taken without her knowledge were found by a pervert's horrified ex.

Paul Baird's sickening actions came to light when his now-ex wife noticed explicit material on an iPad a child was using, which was linked to a Google account on the phone Baird was using. A court heard there were a number of videos, many showing children.

Rachel Glover, prosecuting, told Newcastle Crown Court: "The videos show filming of them, focusing on their bare legs, their bottoms in swimwear and up their skirts...He focuses the camera on their private parts and under their skirts.

Baird's disgusted ex was left distressed and found discovering what he had been doing "traumatic and overwhelming", the court heard.

There were also 35 videos of a woman, including filming or attempting to film under her clothing. After finding out, the woman was left "devastated" and has suffered mental health issues and struggles to go out in public because when she does and sees people on their phone she feels an impulse to check they are not filming her.

Baird, 38, of Garth 24, Killingworth, North Tyneside, who has no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to five offences of taking indecent images of children and one of voyeurism. He was jailed for 20 months and must sign the sex offenders register and be subject to a sexual harm prevention order for ten years.

Judge Edward Legard told him: "Filming young female children purely in order to feed your sexual gratification is simply unconscionable. The lives of these young children can and often are permanently scarred. You and others like you must bear responsibility for it.

"What your ex wife has had to endure can only be guessed at. For her to discover, in the way she did, that the man to whom she was married was taking indecent photographs of children must have been profoundly shocking and distressing."

Mark Harrison, defending, said: "The defendant acknowledges, as he rightly must, that this behaviour, over a relatively short period in 2021, was absolutely disgraceful and amounted to a gross invasion of privacy.

"He has written a letter saying how sorry he is for the pain and upset. He was at a low ebb, drinking and misusing drugs when his mental health was in a poor state."