MET POLICE DETECTIVE WHO SPIED ON WOMAN IN SHOWER SPARED JAIL
A married police detective who used his iPhone to secretly record a woman taking a shower has avoided immediate imprisonment.The victim reported feeling 'confused and shocked' after discovering Benjamin McNish attempting to photograph her unclothed on the morning of 18 February 2019.
Last month, the 30-year-old detective sergeant with the Metropolitan Police was convicted of voyeurism at Southwark Crown Court.
On Wednesday, he received a 20-week jail sentence which was suspended for two years.
McNish is currently suspended from duty as he faces misconduct proceedings.
Additionally, he will be on the sex offenders register for seven years, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
He was also ordered to undertake a sexual offenders' programme, participate in rehabilitation, and pay costs amounting to £750.
The court heard the woman, who cannot be named, did a "double take" when she spotted McNish's phone as she was washing.
"Once I had seen the telephone for the second time, I was quite confused and shocked.
My assumption was that someone was filming me," she said.
"I did not turn off the shower.
I just grabbed the towel to my chest, wrenched open the door and, immediately after I opened the door, I saw Mr McNish standing outside." She said he looked "a bit shocked, like a rabbit in the headlights" and she started shouting at him.
The father-of-two, from Benfleet in Essex, claimed he had used the device as an "extension of my eyes" to find a razor.
CPS senior specialist prosecutor Andrew Levin said: "He violated the victim's privacy by spying on her in a bathroom.
"During the trial, McNish claimed that he had just been using his phone to look for his razor by the sink, but the prosecution was able to prove to the jury that this was an absurd lie."
