A TEENAGER WHO took upskirt pictures of two teachers at a school in Fermanagh has been found guilty of committing acts of outraging public decency.
Timothy Boomer, now 18 and no longer a pupil at the school in question, was charged with five counts of committing an act of a lewd, obscene and disgusting nature and outraging public decency.
BBC News reports that Enniskillen Youth Court heard that Boomer took five pictures of two female teachers at Enniskillen Royal Grammar School in 2015 and 2016, when he was 14 and 15 years old.
In a statement, Boomer apologised for the “distress, worry and pain” he had caused. “It was a wrong, horrible thing to do and at that age I stupidly and wrongly thought it was a daredevil prank, which I genuinely meant no harm by,” he said.
The images in question were found on a memory stick in an ICT room at the school, the BBC reports.
Criminal offence
The fact that the photos were taken by Boomer was not in dispute, but the case centred on the legal definitions of the offence.
‘Upskirting’ is a criminal offence in England and Wales but not in Northern Ireland – although proposals to change this are currently being examined.
A panel of magistrates at Enniskillen Youth Court rejected a defence argument that Boomer’s actions amounted to a prank rather than a criminal offence.
The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers welcomed the guilty verdict, saying it would hopefully allow the two teachers to move on from “these distressing events”.
Boomer will be sentenced next month.
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