Stockton pervert recorded over 200 videos in public toilets including Hartlepool's main shopping centre
A pervert who secretly recorded more than 200 videos of people in public toilets has been sentenced at court.
Jay Dowson, 27, was caught with a total of 223 videos that he filmed on his phone while in men’s toilets in local pubs and shopping centres.
They included one that he took in Hartlepool’s Middleton Grange Shopping Centre.
Other locations included Stockton’s The Shambles shopping arcade and Hill Street Shopping Centre.
Police found 69 videos filmed in one Stockton pub alone.
Dowson was sentenced for seven counts of voyeurism at Teesside Magistrates’ Court after earlier pleading guilty.
Each charge stated his actions were “for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification” and knowing that “the other person did not consent to your recording the act with that intention”.
Leah Plews, prosecuting, told justices Dowson’s phone was seized and examined after he was seen by a security officer recording in Middlesbrough town centre.
She said the recordings uncovered spanned a lengthy period from July 2024 and May 2025.
Dowson’s solicitor, Paul Dixon, told the court: “You are dealing with a young man of 27. It’s clear from the pre sentence report there’s some confused thinking on his part that’s led to this offending over a period of time.
“He accepted his guilt with the police immediately.”
Dowson, of High Street, Stockton, was given an 18-month community order together with 30 rehabilitation days and 40 hours of unpaid work.
He was also given a five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
One condition states he must switch his phone off whenever he enters any public toilet.
Dowson will also be on the sex offenders’ register for five years.