A former councillor who filmed 28 women in bathrooms and bedrooms using hidden cameras over a 15-year period has been jailed for six years and two months.
Former Calderdale council member, Robert Holden, was arrested in 2020 after a woman discovered a recording device in a bedroom in a property in West Yorkshire.
Holden, 51, subsequently fled the country to the west African island nation of Cape Verde before returning after an extradition battle.
He has now been jailed for 31 counts of voyeurism and seven of computer misuse.
The judge, Sophie McKone, described Holden’s actions as ‘voyeurism on a vast scale’.
According to the Guardian, a letter of apology from Holden stated: ‘I abused that trust in the most abhorrent way imaginable…I barely recognise the person that I have turned into.’
DI Jarrod McSharry of Calderdale District Police said: 'It is hard to think of a worse or more devious abuse of trust than that committed by Robert Holden against his victims.
'Holden used his skills in IT to set up elaborate spying equipment which he used to commit multiple voyeurism offences against large numbers of persons who had no idea they were being filmed.'
