A former Inverness youth worker has been found guilty of voyeurism after secretly filming a teenager as she got ready for bed.
Andrew Jessiman – a former High Life Highland youth development officer – had denied the charge, along with one of public indecency, during a trial at Inverness Sheriff Court.
But following two days of evidence, a jury took less than two hours to find Jessiman – who previously worked on projects including the Janny’s Hoose in Merkinch – guilty of both charges.
There was no suggestion during the trial that Jessiman’s crimes were committed during the course of his work.
In evidence led by fiscal depute Pauline Gair, the trial heard how police searching Jessiman’s home discovered a covert recording of a teenager taken through a window as she got ready for, and into, bed.
The grainy video was shown to the jury during the trial and in her closing speech Mrs Gair reminded them: “The footage we saw yesterday was found on a device in a cupboard in the accused’s bedroom.”
‘Disgusting’ and ‘violating’
The victim – aged over 16 at the time of the filming, which took place between September 2017 and September 2019 – was later traced by police.
Jurors heard how she felt Jessiman’s actions were “disgusting” and “violating”.
The public indecency charge related to dates between 2016 and 2019 and detailed how Jessiman exposed his genitals and carried out a sex act on himself whilst naked in a room with the curtains open and the lights on.
One victim, who witnessed this when she was still a child, told the court that this was “gross behaviour”.
Taking to the witness box in his own defence, 44-year-old Jessiman detailed how he had lost his job and his home as a result of the allegations and denied intentionally committing the acts.
In evidence led by defence counsel Kelly Duling, he said: “I’m acutely aware of how these allegations affect people and their lives – it has broken me.”
Under cross-examination from Mrs Gair Jessiman had told jurors “I have no memory or recollection of making the film” but conceded that he could have done adding: “It had no significance to me whatsoever.”
‘I worked with young people’
He added: “I worked with young people, I know what they were feeling and I’m gutted by that.”
In her closing speech to the jury, Ms Duling described the footage they had been shown as a “blurry mess of nothing”.
She sought to persuade them that it was, in fact, Jessiman’s privacy that had been invaded when the complainers in the public indecency charge looked in through a window at him.
However, the jury took under two hours to reject this version of events and find Jessiman guilty of both charges.
Due to Jessiman’s lack of previous convictions, Sheriff Gary Aitken called for presentencing reports, with the case due to call again next month.
Sheriff Aitken also placed Jessiman, of Upper Myrtlefield, Inverness, on the sex offenders register with immediate effect – the eventual length of registration to be determined at sentencing.