A pervert shop manager who spied on a teenager in a staff changing room and took photos up the skirt of a woman at a party has been jailed for 13 months.

Christian Crowley, of Northumberland Road, Shepway, Maidstone, denied two charges of voyeurism and one of taking indecent photographs of a child, but was convicted.

Maidstone Crown Court heard the teenager was working part-time in the shop, in Broadstairs, in January last year and when it was due to close Crowley told her she could go and change out of her uniform.

While doing so, she saw 39-year-old Crowley's mobile phone was leaning against his lunch bag on the draining board.

“She noticed the red light was on,” said prosecutor Andrew Espley. "She picked it up, suspecting what was going on, and she could see it was showing the room as she moved it, and it was clearly recording.

“It had been recording for three minutes 20 seconds. She had only been in the room a couple of minutes. As soon as she realised what he was up to she was very upset.

"She pressed the button to stop recording. It showed an image of him standing in the doorway looking directly at the camera.

"That was him setting the thing up and making sure it was in the right position so that he could record her in her underwear.

"She put it back and told a co-worker what Mr Crowley had been up to. She left the store and went to the police and complained."

The phone was seized and various still images were recovered. They showed views up the woman's mini-skirt taken at a party. Police were able to identify and contact her.

Christian Crowley was sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court

Crowley, formerly of Clarendon Road, Margate, claimed he had left his mobile phone filming in the staff room by accident and said the pictures of the woman were taken with her consent.

He was banned from working with children and vulnerable adults and his name will appear on the sex offenders' register for 10 years.

The jury was told during the trial that Crowley was jailed in 2005 for 18 months for 26 offences of downloading child sex abuse images. He completed sex offender treatment.

Judge Charles Macdonald QC said the teenager would have been filmed in her underwear.

"You realised you had been rumbled and went into the staff room to recover the camera," he said. "You were seen tapping the screen, no doubt deleting the film taken."

The judge said the victim at the party was either wearing no underwear or a thong and her buttocks were exposed.

"Although these are distressing offences, they are not contact offences," he said. "I struggle to see any mitigation. I think there is none."