A FORMER Tory councillor has become one of the first people in Britain to be arrested under new upskirting laws over an attempted act of voyeurism in a busy retail outlet.
Lee Hawthorne, 41, who resigned from Gloucester City Council in April last year, pleaded guilty during a brief hearing held this week at Bristol Crown Court.
Hawthorne was caught operating a mobile phone “beneath another person to observe their genitals, buttocks or underwear, without their consent, for the purposes of obtaining sexual gratification”.
The charge relates to an incident that took place at a busy branch of high street retailer TK Maxx in Northgate Street in Gloucester city centre on June 27th, 2019.
Last week, Hawthorne also pleaded guilty at Cheltenham Magistrates’ Court to a separate charge of voyeurism, which was committed on a date between 2015 and 2019 in Gloucester.
Hawthorne will be sentenced for both offences on March 29th at Bristol Crown Court.
