Voyeur sentenced for filming unconscious naked woman after victim’s five-year legal battle
Victim welcomes sentence but says ‘it is appalling that it has taken five years to get to this point’
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
A man who filmed an unconcious woman naked in a hotel room has been sentenced for voyeurism after his victim fought a five-year battle with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS.)
Christopher Killick, 41, admitted he had recorded the one-minute video of Emily Hunt for his sexual gratification.
At Stratford Magistrates’ Court on Friday he was sentenced to a 30-month community order, fined £2,000 and told to pay Ms Hunt £5,000.
Ms Hunt, who has waived her right to anonymity, had woken up without any clothes on in a hotel room in Bethnal Green, east London, in 2015 and no memory of how she had got there.
The last thing she could remember was having lunch with a family member at a nearby restaurant five hours earlier.
Killick was initially arrested on suspicion of rape but police dropped the case because they could not find sufficient evidence to substantiate the allegation.
However, during their investigation they discovered a 62-second video of Ms Hunt lying naked on the hotel bed which Killick admitted to having taken for his later sexual gratification.
But prosecutors said although Ms Hunt had not consented to the video being taken it was not unlawful under the Sexual Offences Act as it was in a private space and she may have previously consented to being looked at while naked.
After campaigning against this decision, Ms Hunt, with the backing of the Centre for Women’s Justice, crowdfunded a judicial review last year.
Shortly before her legal challenge was due to be heard, the Court of Appeal ruled in a separate case that filming someone in an intimate act without consent was always unlawful. As a result, the CPS reviewed Ms Hunt’s case and charged Mr Killick with voyeurism.
Sentencing Killick, judge Louisa Cieciora said: “The facts of this case are shocking. You prioritised your own desires without any real thought of how this might affect the victim. You saw an opportunity for personal sexual gratification and took it.”
Had he not pleaded guilty to the charge he would have been jailed, she added.
Ms Hunt, who has struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder since the incident, said she was pleased with the “powerful” words of the judge.
“The recognition that this was a serious sexual offence and the acknowledgement of the devastating impact this has had on my life is the most important thing to me,” she said in a statement through her lawyer.
But she added: "It is appalling that it has taken five years to get to this point. I hope that in the future no other victim of a sexual offence has to go through what I have experienced."
Other victims who have suffered similar ordeals have approached her since the landmark ruling by the Court of Appeal in January, she said.
A spokesperson for the CPS spokesperson said: “We recognise the delays in bringing this case to court have had a lasting impact on the victim.
“This is a complex area of law, which was clarified for the first time in the Court of Appeal this year. In light of that significant ruling, the CPS reviewed all the evidence in this case and authorised a charge of voyeurism.
“The CPS does not make or decide the law; that is the remit of Parliament and the courts respectively.”