Children’s play centre boss jailed over secret filming of dozens of women and girls

The co-founder of a children’s soft play company has been jailed for spying on dozens of women and schoolgirls, authorities said.

Former Eddie Catz director Darren Johnson was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment at Kingston Crown Court on Wednesday, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

The married 51-year-old used “peepholes” to film women in toilets and changing rooms at a centre where parents take their young children to have fun.

The father-of-two also followed youngsters when they attended a leisure centre for swimming lessons before using a mobile phone to look under their cubicles as they changed, the court previously heard.

Johnson, from Putney in south-west London, was finally caught when two 14-year-old girls spotted his iPhone 6 from under the adjacent cubicle and alerted staff.

He was identified from CCTV footage and police seized two computers containing hundreds of images of women in various states of undress.

Johnson admitted five counts of voyeurism over a period of 12 years, between January 1 2005 and June 5 2017, though his barrister Tom Williams said his offending occurred over “a few months” in 2007 and a second period in 2016 and 2017.

Johnson was also made the subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and added to the sex offenders register for 10 years, the CPS added.

_{Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2018, All Rights Reserved. Picture (c) Metropolitan Police / PA Wire.}