Mum befriends lonely neighbour – solely to find he is been filming her household bare
A mum’s nextdoor neighbour became a trusted friend after he moved in next door, but he was then caught watching her naked after she put cameras in her home
A single mum became best friends with her neighbour, but she realised he’d be filming her entire family naked for months.
Pete Tomlinson became a good friend of the mum after he moved in 15 years previously, and he was very well liked in the local community. Locals had taken pity on him after he told them he’d been imprisoned for being caught with an underage girl he believed was of age, reports NottsLive.
The jail time led to him being separated from his ex and daughter and meant he had difficulty finding work, but neighbours offered him odd DIY jobs like painting, construction and gardening for little pay. The 56-year-old later
The victim had chosen to remain anonymous. She grew close enough with Pete that she trusted him with a house key to look after her pets while her family was away.
Her sons, aged 10 and 11, would also often play with Pete’s children. But when she noticed a wad of cash went missing from her house, she asked Pete to put internal security cameras in her house. She decided to roll the tapes after the app connected to the cameras seemed to glitch.
As she watched, she saw Pete staring back at her through the lens, and assumed he was watching her. She said: “I whispered to my boys: ‘Don’t walk around the house naked, just whisper, shut the bathroom door – Pete is watching us’.” Another neighbour said they had seen Pete “snooping around on top of the wardrobe” but assumed she’d given him an odd job to do.
The mum responded: “It’s worse than that, I think he’s watching us.” She told Pete she was going out one night after she installed hidden cameras, but she went to a hotel to watch him live where she saw him unplugging the cams and taking the SD cards.
The mum said: “He’s broken my trust, he’s not who I thought he was, he was family, but he’s not anymore. He’s stolen from me and he’s watching us secretly.”
Police found eight months worth of footage, with 2,025 videos and photos of the mum naked, partially dressed, and sitting on the toilet. Tomlinson pleaded guilty to a charge of unauthorised access to computer material as an alternative to his initial charge of voyeurism.
He was also found to have a past child sex conviction from 2003, which did not match the narrative he told his pitying neighbours. Tomlinson was instead jailed for sexually abusing his own daughter from the age of 8. Despite a 10-year restraining order, Pete is apparently living in a hostel around the corner from his victim.
She said: “He is a predator”.
After pleading guilty, Tomlinson was handed a 16-month prison term, suspended for two years.
Nick Walsh, mitigation, said his client wasn’t living in the area when the offence surfaced two years ago.
As part of his suspended sentence, Tomlinson was ordered to attend 40 rehab sessions and was handed a 10-year restraining order which requires him to cease all contact with the victim.
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