A good Samaritan couple have been repaid badly after a man who they accommodated during lock-down set up secret cameras in their bedroom to watch them.
Ryan Elson, 30, was staying alone when the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak hit the United Kingdom in 2020.
A good Samaritan offered him accommodation in April 2020. In return, Elson offered to use his skills in installing CCTV to make the couple’s home in Denbigshire more secure by installing secret cameras.
Elson went too far by installing secret cameras in the couple’s bedroom, walk-in wardrobe and even the bedside alarm clock.
Elson connected the secret cameras on the alarm clock to the apps on his phone which enabled him to watch the couple when they had their private moments.
In one of the videos Elson watched a video of the woman being undressed. The victim who cannot be named for legal reasons fills ‘used and lied to’.
She said: ‘(Elson) has taken complete advantage of the trusting nature of my family.’
‘It is physically exhausting to feel anxious every single day,’ she said.
In November 2020, Elson was arrested by the police and he said that he installed the secret cameras because he was ‘anxious’ and as a result he ‘wanted to be close’ to the couple when they were apart.
“This was clearly a very unhealthy obsession. You were clearly obsessed with this family,” Judge Nicola Saffman told Elson.
‘There was a clear bond of trust between you all. They took pity on you in lockdown, you were clearly struggling, and didn’t want to see you alone and isolated.’
The judge told him he abused this ‘loving, caring and considerate’ family’s trust ‘in the most dreadful way’.
Elson was sentenced to 16 months suspended prison term on Wednesday, June 8, due to his confession.
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