A man used a camera to spy on colleagues using the toilet at the firm he'd worked at for 35 years.

Roger Marsh set up the camera to record inside the staff toilets at Cornelius Beverage Technologies towards the end of the working day when he knew they would be busiest.

Police discovered more than 1,000 computer files containing footage of seven workers at the Brighouse-based firm - where Marsh had worked for 35 years and was a “highly regarded” member of staff.

They raided the 65-year-old’s address after he used a camera attached to his shoe to look up the skirt of a woman shopping in Ikea.

Marsh admitted that he had been using cameras to spy on women for 10 years and got sexual gratification from it.

He also had thousands of indecent images involving children as young as 10.

Marsh pleaded guilty to three charges of voyeurism by recording a private act, outraging public decency and two charges of making indecent images and videos.

Alex Bozman, prosecuting, told Kirklees Magistrates’ Court that Marsh’s crimes were brought to the attention of police following an incident in the Birstall branch of Ikea on November 29.

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A man was shopping in the store with his wife when his attention was drawn to Marsh.

Mr Bozman said: “The defendant was in close proximity to his wife and his feet seemed to be in a strange position.

“The man was then looking at an item on the shelf and had to bend down.

“He saw something flash on Marsh’s shoe and at that point he realised it was a camera attached with Velcro to the shoe.”

The Huddersfield court heard that the man grabbed the shoe and challenged Marsh about it. Police raided Marsh’s then home in Halifax and seized several pieces of computer equipment including hard drives and cameras.

Mr Bozman said: “In the back bedroom there was a computer and footage on display at the time was of a woman using the toilet.

“The defendant was interviewed and said he’d been committing offences of a similar nature for 10 years.

“He’d been to public places and tried to capture footage underneath ladies skirts with a camera attached to his shopping bag or shoe.

“This was without their knowledge and he would upload the footage to his computer.”

Magistrates heard that there were 1,653 live files of voyeuristic recordings and many of these contained footage of his co-workers from Cornelius, a leading supplier of beverage dispensing and cooling equipment.

Mr Bozman said: “He set up a small camera recording in the staff toilets and the footage was made over 18 months.

“These were set up to operate a quarter of an hour before the staff members left work because he was aware that people would use the toilets before leaving for the day.

“He admitted he’d done this for his own sexual gratification.

“The defendant had worked for 35 years at the company and was well-regarded at that firm.”

Marsh had also set up a camera to spy on a former neighbour’s bedroom and had some naked footage of her.

He had possession of 9,547 indecent images and videos of children aged between 10 and 16 and downloaded from the Internet.

Marsh’s solicitor Imran Ali said that because of his client’s actions he has lost his friends and family and his job and been forced to move out of the area.

Magistrates committed Marsh, now of Park Lane in Keighley, to Leeds Crown Court for sentencing on May 24.

He was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register and must not have any unsupervised contact with a child aged under 18 or a number of named witnesses.