A MAN who filmed young girls in a swimming pool changing room and exposed himself on a train has been jailed.

Paul Owen, aged 40, admitted performing a sexual act in the presence of a child, voyeurism, exposure and possession of indecent images of children when he appeared at Worcester Crown Court.

The offences all happened on or before January 25 this year, the date police raided his Worcester flat.

The investigation began in October last year when British Transport Police were contacted by the National Crime Agency about photographs of a child uploaded to a Russian-based website. Some of the photographs were taken on First Great Western and London Midland trains, the court heard.

The internet provider was contacted and an IP address obtained. This led police to Owen’s home in Park Street, Worcester.

Police visited the address on January 25 but Owen, a lodger there, was not present. Police waited until he arrived and arrested him.

Video files showed Owen in the changing rooms of a swimming pool, exposing himself to two young female children said to be aged between 11 and 13.

Colin Banham, prosecuting, said: “They turn and walk away, clearly shocked.”

Police were able to identify Owen because of his trainers.

Owen answered no comment in police interview. In total police found eight indecent images of children of category C after seizing various devices including a Samsung computer tower, a memory stick and a hard drive.

One video on a train showed a disabled child in a wheelchair aged between 12 and 13 being covertly filmed.

In another video girls were filmed getting changed over the partition of a cubicle.

One of the files found was entitled ‘little girl train flasher’.

Mark Lister, defending, said the offences were ‘troubling’. He added: “He wishes to make it clear, through me, of his remorse for this offending. It occurred shortly after the breakdown of a relationship.”

Mr Lister said Owen had the support of his family.

“The fact he has been able to open up to them as well as professionally suggests this is a man who is not beyond redemption” said Mr Lister.

Judge Nicolas Cartwright said Owen was acting quite deliberately in order to get sexual gratification.

Aggravating factors included the location of the offending. Mitigating factors were his lack of previous convictions and his guilty pleas at the first available opportunity.

Judge Cartwright said they were deliberate, separate offences. He said: “You went out on a number of occasions to commit these offences rather than it being one isolated, out of character expedition.”

The judge sentenced him to 16 months in prison, 12 months for carrying out a sexual act in front of a child, four consecutive months for the exposure, four months concurrent for the voyeurism and a further concurrent month for the indecent images.

Owen, who previously lived in Stourbridge, was also made subject to a sexual harm prevention order.