Moment paedophile neighbour is caught red-handed stealing intimate footage of mom and her younger sons after hiding spy-cam in teddy slipper
A paedophile was caught red-handed stealing intimate videos of a mother and her young sons after she set up a spycam hidden inside a teddy slipper.
When Peter Tomlinson, 56, was arrested, police found more than 2,000 images and videos of the family undressed and on the toilet.
The single mother-of-two, who MailOnline is not naming, revealed her ordeal has left her unable to ‘trust anyone anymore’.
Her nightmare started when ‘manipulative’ neighbour Tomlinson convinced the mother, from Broxtowe, Nottinghamshire, to install her own security cameras in the house.
When she noticed there was missing footage, she became suspicious and set about trying to catch the pervert using stealth cameras hidden around her home.
She was left ‘devastated’ by what she found. He had been sneaking into her home and downloading thousands of naked photographs of her and her young sons.
Tomlinson, who has previously served time in jail for child sex offences, pleaded guilty to a charge of unauthorised access to computer material as an alternative to voyeurism.
But the mother was dealt a second bitter blow when he was spared jail, with the judge handing him a 16-month prison term suspended for two years at Nottingham Crown Court.
‘Where is the justice?’ she fumed.
Peter Tomlinson, 56, was caught stealing eight months worth of footage of a mother and her two kids in intimate moments getting undressed and on the toilet
When the mother became suspicious that Tomlinson had been entering her house she set up a spy camera opposite her main security camera, hidden inside these boxes above the fridge
The mother also put a camera inside the eye of her teddy slipper to be placed upstairs in her room where she caught him snooping
Since discovering the footage, the victim suffers ‘horrible panic attacks’ and and her family have been ‘left to pick up the pieces of our lives’.
‘I was just always crying and isolated myself completely. I didn’t go out, I didn’t meet my friends, I couldn’t finish my course or hand in my assignments,’ she said.
She is also furious that Tomlinson, who had lied to the family about his previous child sex offence conviction in 2003, was allowed to live on a street with so many young families.
‘If he’s not allowed into schools, how can a paedophile be allowed to live next to young kids? I don’t understand how this can happen.
‘How can our justice system allow people like him to walk freely around children and women? I feel completely let down.’
Tomlinson moved into the Broxtowe area 17 years ago and locals took pity on him for not being able to work because of his criminal conviction.
Not knowing the true reason behind his imprisonment, the mother’s family would employ him for odd-jobs and DIY handiwork – ‘we trusted him, he said that we had become part of his family’.
The mother said she feels ‘violated’ and ‘no longer safe in my own home’ after the horrifying revelation.
‘I was in my own space just doing normal things – cooking, cleaning, dancing in my own world – and he was watching me.’
Tomlinson plead guilty to a charge of unauthorised access to computer material as an alternative to voyeurism at Nottingham Crown Court and was sentenced last week.
But she is scared that his suspended sentence will let him ‘just do the same thing to other people’.
Tomlinson was caught on the mother’s secret cameras going through the family’s home and stealing footage from her main security cameras
The mother-of-two first became suspicious when £3,500 went missing in her home after she gave Tomlinson the key to feed her pets while on holiday
Missing footage from her main security cameras made her suspicious that someone had been in the house and tampering with them
The ‘destroyed’ mother has been left suffering with ‘horrible panic attacks’ and struggling to leave her house because she feels she ‘can’t trust anyone’
‘I don’t want him to take advantage of a vulnerable woman, I don’t want anyone have to experience this,’ she added.
‘When it first happened, I couldn’t sleep, any noise at night would keep me up because I was scared of retaliation,’ she said.
‘Now if we needed a handyman to fix something in the house, I have to follow them the whole time, I’m just so anxious. You can’t trust anyone anymore.’
When the mother got a dog in 2022, she wanted to install cameras around her house.
At Tomlinson’s suggestion, she also installed a camera in her kitchen looking at the backdoor in case of burglaries.
After returning from a holiday, the mother discovered that £3,500 had been stolen from her house she was saving to start her business.
The only person with access to her home was Tomlinson, who she had asked to feed her cat and dog while she was away.
When she checked the cameras, the mother noticed there was missing footage.
The mother hid a spy camera inside this box, waiting for the moment he would come into her home when he knew she was away
The mother was watching the livestream of him stealing the footage from a hotel room in her hometown of Broxtowe
Tomlinson was given a suspended two year sentence, which feels like he is just ‘walking away’ the mother said
‘That was when I got really scared and panicky – I told my boys to not walk out of the bathroom naked and to always close the bathroom door.’
The mother said she felt ‘fobbed off’ after alerting the police, who told her ‘to just not let him in the house again’.
Instead, she installed cameras to catch Tomlinson in the act by hiding a camera in a box opposite the one he put in the kitchen as well as swapping the eye in her teddy slipper to hide upstairs.
She then told Tomlinson she was going to a meeting in London and watched the livestream of him stealing the kitchen camera’s SD card from a hotel room that night.
‘My heart sank,’ the mother said, ‘and my first thought was of my boys and what videos he’s got of them.’
The next day, she handed her footage of Tomlinson over to the police, who went on to find ‘tons’ of USB sticks and several computers in his house.
The devices held eight months worth of footage including 2,025 images and videos of the family undressed going into the bathroom next to the kitchen and on the toilet.
Speaking after the sentencing, the mother said ‘no one should have to suffer as we have, only to be met with a system that does not hold abusers accountable’.
Tomlinson had lied to his neighbours about his previous conviction of a child sex offence and ‘manipulated’ his neighbours into liking him
‘How can our justice system allow people like him to walk freely around children and women? I feel completely let down’
‘If real change is ever going to happen, victims must be heard, and those in power must start putting our safety before the rights of those who hurt us,’ she added.
Alongside his suspended sentence, Tomlinson was ordered to attend 40 rehabilitation sessions and a programme designed to address his offending, while also being given a 10-year restraining order.
Recorder Sacha Ackland said this was ‘not a sex offence but the offence clearly had a sexual motive’, adding that the mother ‘trusted you and your actions abused that trust’.
Nick Walsh, Tomlinson’s barrister, said ‘he knows it was a deliberate decision to take the SD card and his actions have turned his life and the lives of his family upside down’.
Nottinghamshire Police have been contacted for comment.
