A Peeping Tom policeman has escaped a jail sentence for spying on a woman at the Stansted Airport police station.

David Smith drilled a hole in a wall between the male and female changing rooms at the station gym.

He concealed the hole behind a telephone-style connection box and spied on the woman when she used the gym.

But a court heard how the woman became suspicious when she saw the box had been fitted to the wall.

She discovered a hole behind the box, and other colleagues mounted a covert operation to find out what was going on.

A hidden camera was installed and police also used a "decoy" for the woman who had found the hole in the wall.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard how the camera later pictured 47-year-old Smith using a corridor leading to the male changing room at the gym, which he did not use very often.

He was seen in the corridor seven times on one ocassion, the court heard.

Smith, from Chrishall, near Royston in Hertfordshire, was jailed for three months, suspended for two years, after he admitted two charges of voyeurism. He denied a third count of voyeurism, which was left on the file.

He was also given a two-year supervision order and told to take part in a sex offenders' treatment programme, pay £220.09 for the damage he caused when he made the hole in the wall, and pay £722 costs.

Judge David Turner QC also put Smith on the sex offenders' register for seven years.

The judge told Smith he had preyed on the woman for his own gratification.

Ian Boys, prosecuting, said the offences took place between March 28 and April 25 this year.

They left the woman deeply shocked and the court heard how an impact statement from the woman said she had been "profoundly upset".

Steven Levy, mitigating, said Smith had been a divisional training officer at the airport police station. He had resigned from the police and was now working as an HGV driver.

Mr Levy added: "He created an infatuation with the woman and was not thinking rationally."