'Peeping Tom' policeman spied on fellow officer while she was in station changing room

A policeman who became infatuated with a female colleague drilled a hole through to the women's changing rooms at their station to ogle her naked body.

PC David Smith, 47, concealed his spy-hole with a fake phone junction box on one side and a phoney dehumidifier on the other.

But his victim became suspicious and alerted station chiefs. Smith, a divisional training officer who is married with two children, was arrested after colleagues set up a sting operation.

Concealed cameras caught him spying on a decoy officer who went into the changing room and stripped off before applying body lotion.

Smith was suspended on full pay and resigned last month after admitting adapting a structure to watch another person for sexual gratification and observing someone without their consent.

At Chelmsford Crown Court yesterday Judge David Turner QC gave Smith a three-month suspended jail term after telling him his victim, a civilian employee at the station in north Essex, had been left "profoundly distressed and humiliated".

The woman, who can't be identified for legal reasons, noticed the box on the wall on April 10 after arriving at 7am for her regular gym session.

Prosecutor Ian Boys said: "When the box was removed, there were no working parts and a hole was cut in the plaster board affording a view between the male and female changing rooms."

A covert operation was set up on April 25, with a secret camera pointing at Smith's location.

After the civilian worker finished her workout, an officer took her place, stripped off and began applying lotion. Smith entered the changing rooms seven times that day.

Smith, who is now working as an HGV driver, was yesterday told he must attend a sex offenders' programme.