Lewisham pervert Andrew Meldrum who spied on women in their homes after hijacking webcams avoids jail

Andrew Meldrum, 30, of Crosslet Vale, used the software to remotely hijack his three victims' webcams so he could watch them in their homes.

One of the victims broke down in tears at Woolwich Crown Court as Meldrum was handed suspended sentences for his crimes.

Police began investigating him in November 2012 when one woman, 21, found the spyware and immediately suspected Meldrum, who had helped her with the computer.

Two other women were then alerted to the pervert's actions and discovered the software on their PCs.

Meldrum recorded pictures of his victims during 18 months of spying. Police found 88 images of one woman in her underwear, naked, in the bathroom using the toilet and "in positions of intimacy, both alone and with a boyfriend."

The pervert even kept a picture on his phone of one woman lying naked in her bed.

Meldrum, who had recently moved to Lewisham from Portsmouth, also used his spying to discover one of the victims was considering going to the police, calling her to beg her not to.

Prosecutor James Vine said officers found a "huge number of images" on Meldrum's machine, totalling around 11,000, despite him attempting to wipe his computer before police came.

In mitigation, Shila Whitehead said her client was "extremely remorseful", suffered from paranoia, had been booted off his Goldsmiths course, lost his job and run up £4,000 in gambling debts.

She said of the software: "It was a tool that he used. Unfortunately a tool which had devastating consequences for him."

But Recorder Mark Heywood told Meldrum: "This, in my judgement, was a serious and persistent course of offending."

Meldrum, who was found guilty after trial of two counts of voyeurism in March, was given a 12-month sentence for each, suspended for two years.

He had previously admitted three counts of unauthorised access to a computer and was given six-month suspended sentences for each, to run concurrently.