The former mayor of a Lancashire village in the UK has been sentenced to two years for stealing women’s underwear.
Fifty-nine-year-old Ian Stafford was apprehended after a suspicious owner placed a hidden camera in her bedroom. The captured footage showed the then mayor in a state of partial dress rifling through her drawers in search of underwear, then performing a sex ct.
The BBC reports that at the time of his crimes he had been working as a part-time handyman and gardner and that he had access to his victims’ homes.
Judge Heather Lloyd described Stafford’s crimes as “bluntly revolting” and then sentenced the municipal panty raider to two years for each offense. Fortunately for Stafford, the sentences are concurrent not consecutive.
In sentencing, Judge Lloyd told Stafford:
Your private desires or fantasies which should only be your concern became public when you decided to do what you did in the homes of those who trusted you.
Detective Constable Steve Montgomery spoke on behalf of the victims:
This has been a distressing ordeal for the victims involved, all of whom had let Mr Stafford into their homes, trusting him to carry out maintenance.
They certainly did not expect him to search for, and steal, their possessions. There has been a breach of their trust in a very intimate nature. The victims are relieved that the court process is now over.
Although Stafford will probably only serve a fraction of his jail time before he is paroled, his victims can rest easy in the knowledge that his crime is not one that is likely to earn him a great deal of respect from his fellow inmates.
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