Romford man who filmed up women’s skirts is sentenced

A Romford sex addict who was caught with more than 100 ‘up skirt’ film clips of women on Tube escalators, was sentenced to a community order by a court.

Nicholas Holt, of Brook Road, was arrested after being spotted by suspicious staff as he recorded a female commuter leaving Tottenham Court Road station.

A member of the public said he had seen the 41-year-old trying to hide a camera in a newspaper.

Station staff approached Holt and the recording of the woman was still on his mobile phone, together with film of another victim at the same station.

Zoe Jacob prosecuting told Westminster Magistrates’ Court: “The woman was seen walking up the stairs in the footage. You can see her underwear, she was wearing a white thong - you can see her buttocks.”

She added that the second video was also a recording up a woman’s skirt that showed her underwear and bottom.

At Holt’s home, police found 128 similar up-skirt shots.

Andrew Moxon, defending, said Holt had taken steps to try and deal with his sexual addiction and since his arrest had been seeing a counsellor at the Marylebone Centre.

Mr Moxon said: “He immediately expressed an almost relief at being caught because that meant that he could now, in the open, get the help that he needed.

“He himself went out to get himself a mobile phone that doesn’t have a camera. It is a very strange device and it was not easy to get hold of.”

Holt was this week made subject of a 12-month supervision requirement and ordered to carry out a specified sexual offending course.

He had admitted a single count of outraging public decency on March 30.

Police have been unable to charge him over shots of 128 other victims found on hard disks at his home because the women cannot be identified.