Sex offender who secretly filmed others spared jail
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A sex offender who secretly filmed others including while repeatedly following the same woman has been spared jail in an effort to stop him re-offending.
When police raided Muir of Ord man Iain Grant's house at Highfield they found a stash of videos he had taken without any consent.
These included neighbours coming and going from their houses and 21 clips of the same woman filmed without her consent while she travelled on a train going between the Ross-shire town and Inverness.
Police also found a stash of more 600 indecent images of children in his possession following a tip-off about his behaviour.
Inverness Sheriff Court heard the majority of the videos shot on the train and in and around the city's train station showed the legs of various women wearing tights.
However when he appeared for sentencing Sheriff Sara Matheson said there was an alternative to custody which would enable a better chance of him not re-offending in future.
In order to get him into a programme designed to rehabilitate sex offenders she imposed a community payback order with a number of conditions.
In order to stay out of jail Grant must be under the strict supervision of social workers for the next three years.
His additional conditions include having only one mobile phone and one computer which must be registered with social workers and can be strictly monitored.
He must have permission to access the internet via his devices and cannot delete his browsing history and not download any third party apps without the express consent from those supervising him.
He was also ordered to carry out 270 hours of unpaid work and will be on the sex offenders register for three years as a result of his behaviour.
The court heard previously that when police seized Grant's computer equipment they discovered the 46-year-old had taken a number of secret videos of his neighbours' houses while they were inside.
One of the tapes discovered in a briefcase showed that at one point he had used a night vision camera to do so.
Fiscal depute Pauline Gair said that when police carried out the search warrant on November 27, 2019, Grant said to them "I know what you're looking for. It's me you are looking for."
Some of the videos dated back as far as 2002.
One file on a computer was labelled "spy video" and another "spy photo".
Police found a total of 71 clips of a voyeuristic nature on one hard drive and a total of 631 indecent images of children were found across all of his equipment.
Of the indecent images, 239 were of a category A nature - the most severe.
The others were rated as category B and C.
Secret footage was also shot on buses and at bus stops between Falcon Square in the Highland capital and the UHI Inverness campus, where Grant was studying computer science.
He also filmed under tables at the university canteen.
Mrs Gair said police managed to identify the woman filmed the most on the train and she was informed.
The fiscal depute added: "[She] stated she had been completely unaware she was being filmed by the accused.
"She stated that on now being aware of that fact she felt "violated" and was "quite alarmed" by the accused's actions."
Grant previously admitted to conducting himself in a disorderly manner between March 2002 and February 2019 by filming the women without their knowledge and thereby committing a breach of the peace.
The offences took place at his home, on various forms of public transport and at UHI Inverness.
He also admitted possessing indecent photos or pseudo-photos of children between October 2016 and November 2019.
