A senior officer from London’s Metropolitan Police was on Friday jailed for three years after being caught using hidden spy cameras to film naked women, in another damaging blow for the force.
Detective Inspector Neil Corbel, 40, told police he was addicted to pornography after his hard drive was discovered to contain images of 51 suspected victims, 19 of whom testified against him.
Corbel, a former counter-terrorism officer, took on various false identities to lure models for photoshoots before planting spy cameras in hotel rooms and flats.
The married father-of-two hid the cameras in tissue boxes, phone chargers, air fresheners, glasses, keys and headphones, Isleworth Crown Court in west London heard.
A model, who had agreed to pose naked for a shoot, became suspicious of a digital clock and found online that it was a spyware device controlled by a smart phone.
Corbel had earlier pleaded guilty to 19 voyeurism offences.
Judge Martin Edmunds jailed Corbel for a total of three years for the offences, which took place in London, Manchester and Brighton between January 2017 and February 2020.
“You used a range of deceptions to induce women to take off their clothes in your presence so you could record videos for your sexual gratification,” Edmunds told Corbel.
“You did so using multiple strategically placed covert cameras, sometimes as many as nine.”
One model told Corbel in court that his actions had affected “every aspect” of her life, and she had bald spots from pulling out her hair with stress.
The case comes after another Metropolitan Police officer was jailed for life for the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard in south London in March 2021.
Her disappearance sparked national protests calling for better safety for women and girls in public places. Her killer’s conviction undermined confidence in the police, as he had used his warrant card to make a false arrest.
Everard’s murder came nearly a year after two sisters, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, were stabbed to death by a man in a Satanic-inspired attack in a northwest London park.
The Met Police was criticised for not initially taking reports of the sisters’ disappearance seriously because of their race.
Two Met officers were later jailed for taking unauthorised photographs at the crime scene and sharing them with colleagues on WhatsApp.
AFP