Couple find secret cameras in bedroom set up by man they accommodated in their house during lockdown
A man has been handed a jail sentence in the United Kingdom after he was discovered to have set up secret cameras to watch the private moments of a couple who accommodated him during the Covid lockdown.
The good-natured couple took pity on Ryan Elson, 30, who was living alone when the Covid pandemic forced UK citizens to isolate and not see anyone outside their household in 2020.
He was then offered a room by the good-natured couple in April 2020
In return for their good deed, Elson offered to use his expertise in CCTV to make their house, in Denbighshire, North Wales, safer by installing cameras.
But he took it too far as he used the opportunity to install cameras in the couple’s bedroom, their walk-in wardrobe and even their bedside alarm clock.
The cameras which he hid in an alarm clock were then linked to apps on his phone, where he watched a live feed of the couple when they had their private moments.
At one point, Elson saw the woman getting undressed.
The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court she felt ‘used and lied to’.
She said: ‘(Elson) has taken complete advantage of the trusting nature of my family.’
She added the ordeal has left her ‘clinging’ to her mental health ‘with the tips of her fingers’.
‘It is physically exhausting to feel anxious every single day,’ she said.
He was arrested in November 2020, after his arrest Elson told police he installed the cameras because he was ‘anxious’ and ‘wanted to be close’ to the couple when they were apart.
Judge Nicola Saffman told Elson: ‘This was clearly a very unhealthy obsession. You were clearly obsessed with this family.
‘There was a clear bond of trust between you all. They took pity on you in lockdown, you were clearly struggling, and didn’t want to see you alone and isolated.’
The judge told him he abused this ‘loving, caring and considerate’ family’s trust ‘in the most dreadful way’.
Elson was sentenced to 16 months suspended prison term on Wednesday, June 8, due to his confession.
