“A peeping Tom who filmed women as they relieved themselves before the start of the Great North Run was yesterday warned he faces jail. Christopher Swyer, 29, followed women into secluded bushes near Newcastle’s Town Moor and used a digital camcorder concealed in a black carrier bag to secretly film them before the start of last year’s race. He was arrested after the husband of one of his victims caught him in the act and restrained him until police arrived. Swyer, of Springwell Road, Jarrow, South Tyneside, was found guilty of two counts of voyeurism and one count of attempted voyeurism… Judge Michael Cartlidge told Swyer to ‘prepare himself for custody’ and said it appeared he had a ’sexual perversion for contemplating films of ladies urinating.’ Following Swyer’s arrest on September 18, police discovered a video tape, which revealed he had already filmed a handful of unsuspecting women relieving themselves at the Green Festival in Leazes Park in May and also on the sand dunes following a concert in South Shields in June… Tim Gittens, prosecuting, said Swyer had taken advantage of the huge queues for toilets at the start line for the Great North Run caused by the 55,000 in attendance. He said to him: ‘You went specifically to video women and women only who were urinating in the bushes. You had gone out looking for these women and had to walk through some quite dense woodland to come up behind them. ‘You were well-aware the women had a reasonable expectation of privacy. ‘You went around the area trying to record as many woman urinating as you could. Why? Because you wanted to look at half naked women and women urinating. It was turning you on wasn’t it? You were getting sexual gratification from it and wanted to watch the footage time and time again.’ Swyer admitted making the films to watch at home and acknowledged what he had done was morally wrong, but denied breaking the law. He said: ‘I filmed them because it’s not something you see everyday. I thought it was funny and I was shocked. I never hid and did not consider the women to be in a private place. I didn’t think they had a right to privacy when they were in a public place. ‘I went to the Green Festival to enjoy the bands and went to the Great North Run to spot celebrities. Filming women did briefly enter my mind, but I didn’t have a masterplan.’ But when Mr Gittens asked Swyer how much footage he had taken of the Great North Run or of bands at the Green Festival he admitted he had recorded nothing except women relieving themselves.” — icNewcastle (UK)

Mr. Swyer may well be a lowlife creep who gets his rocks off watching women pee. He attended public events with his camcorder but recorded only desperate acts of urination. He more or less admitted to this but sought clemency from the court, claiming that his business had been ruined — not that his company, Information Empire, looked particularly valuable. He also claimed that his life had been pretty much destroyed. After all, how much more humiliating can it get than being captured by a man wearing a banana suit? (What a headline that should have been: Banana Man Captures Pee Perv.)

All that may well be true, Mr. Swyer may well be guilty as charged, but you have to admit that his legal defense was not without merit. If somebody urinates on public property, do she have a right to privacy? PervScan was unable to track down the law covering public peeing in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but in most places it’s illegal to let loose on public property. Even if you seek privacy in the bushes, it’s still public property — which means that anybody else, pervs included, have as much right to be loitering in those bushes as you. Furthermore, if it is illegal to pee in a public place, then aren’t these runners commiting crimes too? Perhaps Mr. Swyer’s best defense might have been to claim that he is a rabid environmentalist shocked and appalled by the way these athletes maltreat the local flora.

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