PEEPING PAL; Voyeur rigged up secret camera to watch neighbours' sex life for 2 years.(News)

From: Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland)  | Date: October 1, 2005  | 

Byline: By Michael Christie
A PERVERT rigged up a camera in a couple's bedroom so he could watch them have sex.
Electrician Darren Ralph spent two years recording their intimate moments using a hi-tech video link.
But yesterday, the 39-year-old was jailed for three months for spying on his lifelong pal and his wife.
Ralph hid the camera in a wardrobe after the couple asked him to fit a burglar alarm while they were away.
Pictures were beamed to his garage via a transmitter in the attic. He watched them on his living-room TV.
The horrified husband said: "We have known Ralph for years. I was disgusted and embarrassed that he could betray us like that A court heard the wife was putting a duvet away last December when she noticed a hole drilled in a wardrobe.
Jeremy Jenkins, prosecuting, said: "She went to get some cotton wool to plug the hole when she noticed something moving within it.
"She called her husband who went to investigate and found a series of leads connected to a camera lens.
"The lens was very small and attached to a transmitter which ultimately linked to Ralph, who had been recording the couple having sex."
Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard the couple, in their thirties, suspected Ralph. But when he denied any knowledge, they called in police. After Ralph was arrested, he said: "Yes - I did it, it was me. I'm a pervert. I've lost everything. I'm sorry."
Videotapes recovered included long scenes of the couple having sex and shots of the wife undressing.
Ralph told police: "The camera was on all the time. I would view it twice a week. Sometimes three times a week. I was turned on with it."
Ralph, of Hirwaun, south Wales, admitted three counts of voyeurism.
Judge John Curran told him: "This was a gross breach of trust.
"It was a calculated act of voyeurism with significant sophistication."
The two couples had been friends for 14 years and went on holiday together several times. Ralph's wife Elizabeth was not available to comment