Met Police counter-terror officer secretly filmed dozens of women while posing as airline pilot

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A Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism officer secretly filmed dozens of women while posing as an airline pilot, a court has heard.

Detective Inspector Neil Corbel, 40, set up fake photoshoots with models and escorts while claiming to have an “interest in photography”.

Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that he used cameras disguised as everyday items, such as a phone charger, clock, pair of glasses, air freshener and tissue box to film the women from intimate angles and while changing.

He also secretly recorded sex workers, including a woman he “paid to play a non-consensual sex role”, for his own gratification.

His victims said they felt “violated” and had lost trust in the police after finding out he was a senior counter-terrorism officer at the time of the offences.

“The fact he’s a police officer is a huge deal - these people are meant to protect us,” one woman said in a statement.

“Following the murder of Sarah Everard this feels like a very frightening time to be a woman. If we can’t trust the police to protect us, what are we supposed to do?”

Corbel admitted 19 counts of voyeurism over incidents in London, Manchester and Brighton between January 2017 and February 2020.

He was caught after one of his victims became suspicious during a nude photoshoot at a London hotel, which Corbel had arranged online.

Prosecutor Babatunde Alabi said: “She became suspicious of a digital clock which had been placed on top of Corbel’s laptop computer.

“She felt he had been maneuvering her into positions where her genitals would be in view of the clock.”

The woman noticed a logo on the clock and went to the bathroom to research it on the internet.

She discovered that it was being sold online as a “high-end spyware video recording device” that could be controlled by smartphones.

The woman went straight from the hotel to Bishopsgate Police Station in the City of London on 24 January 2020.

Detectives found that Corbel had given the hotel a fake name and address for the booking, but traced him through details from the Purple Port website he used to approach the model.

Corbel admitted setting up the clock and other camera devices, and told police had had “filmed many more models and sex workers covertly” for his own sexual gratification.

“He said he used the name Harrison and claimed to be an airline pilot,” Mr Alabi told the court.

At Corbel’s home, investigators found a range of spying devices, and the DSLR camera he claimed to use for photography but also used to filmed women covertly.

Police discovered recordings of at least 51 women, but some were thought to be consensual, some were outside the UK and some victims’ identities were not traced.

Of the 31 women identified and contacted, 19 agreed to make statements against the police officer.

Of those, 16 were models booked by Corbel for photoshoots and the other three were escorts, who consented to sexual activity but not being filmed.

They told how Corbel approached them online, and told them that he was an airline pilot called Harrison.

In victim impact statements read to the court, women said he was “funny and charismatic” and seemed to be a nice person.

“He told me he was a pilot and I believed him, he seemed friendly,” one woman said.

“It sickens me how easy it was for him to lie all the way through the photoshoot.”

Four of his victims attended the hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, sitting together while Corbel was in the dock.

One said she had “become paranoid” and struggled to work or trust new people.

“I thought the defendant was a nice person and we had a connection,” she added.

“The fact the defendant is a police officer has scared me and shocked me. He is supposed to enforce the law, I expect he knows how to deal with people and has used his knowledge, experience and training to manipulate me

“He was so charming and believable in his role, I just ask myself what else he was capable of.”

A victim who volunteers helping survivors of sexual abuse said: “How can I tell these women to trust the police when this experience has shaken my beliefs?

“How many women will read about this case and lose their trust too, how may predators will escape reporting because of this?”

Another woman said the incident had left her with nightmares and struggle sleeping, while a different victim said she felt “vulnerable and unsafe”.

One woman said finding out Corbel was a police officer was a “shock to the system”, adding: “Police officers are meant to be there to protect you, especially with the Sarah Everard case it’s difficult to know who to trust.

“I don’t feel protected right now, I was oblivious to his wrongdoing.”

Another said that models who agree to nude photoshoots set “clear lines in the sand” that must be respected.

Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring, the chief magistrate of England and Wales, sent the case to a crown court for sentence saying his powers of up to a year imprisonment were not sufficient.

“The offending had substantial planning, there was considerable deceit, a different identity and personality,” he added.

“He went to extraordinary lengths to hide the filming of the women, and particularly of concern is that there is at least a suggestion that he used his knowledge in his work to secure recording equipment of an undercover nature.”

Edward Henry QC, defending, said the offences were not committed while Corbel was on duty and that he did not utilise his role or benefits as a police officer.

The barrister said he had been a police officer for 13 years, helped thwart a terror plot “saving countless lives” and responded to the 2017 London Bridge attack.

He told the court that Corbel suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder and sex addiction, adding: “The sex addiction was used as a sort of medication to deal with the stress of his perfectionism in serving the public.”

Corbel was suspended from duty after his arrest and misconduct proceedings will follow.