A PERVERTED landlord who secretly filmed university students in a bathroom has escaped jail.

Peter Woolls, 55, from Parson's Heath, Colchester, fitted a camera to the wall at the student property in Wivenhoe having advertised for female only tenants.

A friend of one of the tenants found the camera pointing towards the shower and officers found viewing equipment in the shed which Woolls would visit in the garden and kept locked.

However police did not find evidence Woolls had ever watched or recorded anything.

Judge Anthony Goldstaub QC gave him a conditional discharge for a year and told him to pay £1,000 costs after he admitted voyeurism.

See Monday's Gazette for the full story.