Peeping Tom, Dick & Flash Harry
MAKE the punishment fit the crime. An eye for an eye. A dayglow yellow jacket for a peeping Tom.
As the Sun reports (“GLOW IN THE PARK!”), 24-year-old Stephen Copper has pleaded guilty to a charge of voyeurism.
We catch up with Cooper as he appears before the Beak at Southend Crown Court. The ominously named Judge Peter Dedman hears of Cooper being in someone’s garden and peering through a crack in their curtains. As Dedman says, Cooper aim is “to reach sexual gratification”.
Cooper has form. He has been nabbed for similar offences in Grays and Weymouth.
Enough has been heard. Cooper’s sentence will now be delivered. Dedman tells him that he must wear a yellow florescent yellow jacket when out at night.
This will enable him to be visible to potential victims. It will also enable him to cross the road in safely and loiter around holes in the ground without arousing suspicion.
But will this curtail Cooper’s deviant behaviour? Three times he has been caught, a tally that suggests he feels a compulsion to peep.
And will the punishment offer a salve to victims? Will they be less shocked to see a man leering at them if he is stood in their garden dressed in a brilliant yellow jacket?
Will other voyeurs pull on yellow jackets of their own, seeing the chance to evade justice, frame Cooper and get him off their peeping patch?
It might be advisable if Cooper were made to wear this jacket in the day and night. With the summer moving in better he’s encouraged to build up a sweat on head and hands and so alert the public to his febrile state...
anorak
