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A city council worker who took a photograph up a colleague’s skirt and pawed the woman at the council offices was branded a ‘pervert’.
But Judge Michael Gledhill QC stopped short of sending Kieron Keeble to prison, noting he had never been in trouble before, his family had stood by him and the offences dated back three years.
Keeble, 63, who no longer works for Oxford City Council, had denied outraging public decency and two charges of sexual assault by touching. But jurors at Oxford Crown Court unanimously convicted him on all three counts.
The court heard he'd used his mobile phone to take a photograph up his younger female colleague’s skirt as she stopped to take a picture of a squirrel while they were walking round Christ Church Meadow in July 2018.
She asked him to delete the image, which he claimed to have taken as a ‘prank’, but later found him looking at the disgusting snap. He told her he planned to go over the road from the city council offices to toilets at the town hall so he could perform a sex act on himself.
The jury found that Keeble had also squeezed the woman’s bottom and stroked her leg.
In an impact statement made in 2019 and read to the court on Friday afternoon, the victim said she’d had to move away from Oxfordshire after reporting the incident. She slammed the city council, saying she ‘felt they weren’t protecting me’, and added: “I regularly had anxiety attacks about the thought of going back there.”
Sentencing him to 12 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years, Judge Gledhill said there had been nothing amusing about Keeble taking the picture up his colleague’s skirt.
“It was not a prank. You have told lie upon lie in my view about what happened throughout these various incidents but particularly in Christ Church Meadow,” he said, adding it had been ‘no accident’ that the photograph was taken.
Judge Gledhill told the Oxfordshire dad: “It’s appalling to see a man of your background, a hardworking man of previous good character standing in the dock of this court aged 63.
“Working for Oxford City Council in 2018, your behaviour towards your colleague was shocking and quite frankly disgusting. You made her life intolerable.
“You have just heard read out her victim impact statement, written some time ago now, but you have seen the distress that she exhibited when she gave evidence by reliving the ordeal you put her through. You ought to be completely and utterly ashamed of yourself.
“I have seen your wife, your daughter and one of your sons sitting day after day at this court listening and watching what you did to your victim and goodness knows what was going through their minds.
“Their husband and father has been shown to be a pervert. Nothing less than that would describe what you did.”
Keeble’s personal and professional reputation had ‘gone out the window’, Judge Gledhill added.
He wondered what those who had provided character references in support of Keeble – including two former colleagues at the city council – would think ‘when they realise the side of you they know and have seen is not the only side of you; you have these perverted lusts that lead you to commit offences against women’.
Explaining his reasoning for imposing a suspended rather than an immediate jail sentence, Judge Gledhill told Keeble: “These offences are old, you have not committed or been convicted of offences of this kind before, there are no outstanding matters as far as I am aware, your wife stands by you as do your children.
“In those circumstances there is no benefit to the public from sending you to prison immediately.”
During the trial, Keeble claimed he had a ‘good’ sense of humour and decided to ‘pretend’ to take a photograph up his colleague’s skirt as a prank.
He had not realised he’d taken the picture until later and thought his colleague had deleted it. The defendant denied touching her sexually.
Former colleagues of Keeble’s at the council described him as ‘bubbly and caring’ and ‘honourable, decent and kind’.
Keeble, of Charlbury, Oxfordshire, will be on the sex offender register for 10 years and must pay £1,000 compensation and £3,500 in costs. A restraining order bans him from contacting his victim for five years.
Following the sentencing, an Oxford City Council spokeswoman said: “We expect the highest standards of conduct from all our employees, and any allegations against our staff will be quickly investigated and appropriately dealt with.
"As soon as this incident was reported Mr Keeble was suspended, and he resigned from the Council in 2019 while an investigation into the incident was ongoing. The investigation found him guilty of gross misconduct.”