A TEACHER who formerly worked in a north Cumbrian secondary school has gone on trial accused of voyeurism.

At Carlisle Crown Court, 39-year-old Curtis Clarke denies secretly filming a woman during four sexual encounters with her while he lived in the city and worked at a local school.

He said the videos – which show him having sex with the woman in various locations – were all created with her knowledge and consent. He denies the four allegations that relate to each of the videos involved. 

Opening the case for the prosecution barrister Tim Evans said the four videos at the heart of the case were filmed on three separate dates. 

“You will hear her given evidence that she never, in fact, consented to any sexual videos [being made],” Mr Evans said.

The prosecutor referred also to exchanges of WhatsApp messages between Clarke and the woman which show he asked her for intimate pictures, which she refused to provide. “She makes it clear she is not prepared to do that,” said the barrister. 

The videos themselves also showed clearly, Mr Evans told the jury, that the woman was unaware that she was being filmed because at no point does she look at the camera – a point disputed by Clarke.

READ MORE: Community buys pub

The clips include no conversation, or comments about the sex being filmed, said the barrister.  In one video, the woman’s face can be more clearly seen and the phone appears to be quickly put down, suggested Mr Evans.

Mr Evans asked if she had been aware of the sex videos the defendant admits were created, according to him with her consent. She replied: “Not at the time. I have never consented to being filmed at any point.”

Asked about the idea of her allegedly consenting to being filmed while naked or involved in sex, she said she would never get involved in making or sending any images like that.

“Once you have sent that, you lose control and don’t know what’s going to happen to it,” she told the jury. “I made it clear that I was never going to consent to any pictures.”

In one message, said Mr Evans, she had described herself as “very old-fashioned”. She said: “What happens in a person’s private life should stay that way and should not be documented.”

In his evidence, Clarke, who began working at a local secondary school  in 2014, repeatedly said the four sex videos were “consensual.” He recalled meeting the woman during a night out in Carlisle.

She was “extremely confident” and “very complimentary” about him, he said.

“She was flirting a lot with me,” he said. The jury then heard about the four videos, one lasting 1 minute and 42 seconds, a second lasting 10 seconds longer, and two shorter videos. 

Clarke suggested that the videos showed the woman “engaging” and that the recording was consensual each time.

They had sex at various places around the house, he said. 

Asked why he had transferred the four videos to a mass storage device, he said his wife had checked his phone and seen that he had deleted “flirty messages” from his WhatsApp on his phone.

The defendant was then cross-examined by Mr Evans.

The barrister asked: “Would you agree that you are a persistent liar, somebody who can lie and deceive easily?” Clarke replied: “I’d disagree with that assertion.”

Mr Evans suggested that the defendant lied to a good friend in when he said his relationship with his wife was over. Clarke said the man was not a close friend, and that he was sleeping on the sofa in the marital home. 

The barrister then quizzed Clarke about his claim that the woman “regularly” sent him images on herself naked, still and moving images, and his suggestion that she was “more interested” in this than him.

Clarke said he had no evidence of this because the images were sent via WhatsApps “one time send” function, which automatically deletes the images after they have been viewed.

“You had an interest in sexually filming women you were with in pursuance of for your interests,” said Mr Evans.

Clarke said: “You are misrepresenting my case… There was no voyeurism. This was consensual filming.” Mr Evans said there was no point in the videos which showed the woman looked at the camera.

Clarke, whose address has been given as Percival Road, Enfield, London, suggested that she had done this during the video that was shot in the kitchen, though Mr Evans said  this was not the borne out by the video.

Referring to a short video Mr Evans suggested the clip was short because the woman looked in the direction of the phone used to make the video.

The barrister suggested this was one of the “short periods” where Clarke had exercised his “kinky filming” of the woman. “You wanted to do it and she would not agree to it so you did it without her consent,” said Mr Evans.

Clarke replied: “I’m just going to say no… we always filmed. It happened on the spur of the moment.”

The trial continues.