Pervert jailed at Teesside Crown Court for spying on teenage boy in Hartlepool shopping centre toilets

Pervert Ian Laing, 50, looked at the lad as he was about to use the urinal in Middleton Grange Shopping Centre’s toilets making the victim feel uncomfortable.

He moved to a cubicle instead but Laing watched him again in a mirror before running into the cubicle and starting to pull down his own trousers, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Rachel Butt, prosecuting, said: “Before anything more could happen and fearing the defendant was going to make him do something he didn’t want to, he fled from the toilets.”

When he asked Laing, a convicted sex offender, what he thought he was doing, he apologised.

Laing was arrested after being identified by CCTV and pleaded guilty to voyeurism and common assault.

The victim said of the effect of what happened: “This incident has made me feel angry and anxious and had a negative impact on my mental health.”

Liang was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for seven years in 2017 following a conviction for inciting a child to engage in sexual activity. He went on to breach the order twice.

Recorder Mark McKone warned unemployed Laing: “There are real signs in your offences of you starting to pose a serious danger to children.”

Chris Morrison, mitigating, said his client could offer no explanation for the offences but added that he was sorry for the distress caused.

Laing, of Stockton Road, Hartlepool, was jailed for eight months and will be on the sex offenders’ register for seven more years.