Former Carlisle teacher could be jailed over making secret sex tapes

After a four-day trial at Carlisle Crown Court, a jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts on four voyeurism allegations faced by 39-year-old secondary school teacher Curtis Clarke, who worked locally for several years.

He denied the offences.

After the jurors returned guilty verdicts, they were told for the first time how the crimes came to light: it was because the defendant tried to humiliate his victim by posting intimate images of her taken from one of the secret videos on a Carlisle pub toilet wall.

He also put up the same poster, which included the woman's personal details, on a local bus stop near her home.

Clarke had previously admitted two counts of disclosing private sexual photos of the woman but the  jury were not told this for legal reasons. 

Addressing the jury about this after the verdicts, prosecutor Tim Evans described how the woman was at her Carlisle home when a member of staff at a Botchergate bar called her, telling her about the poster.

An intimate image from one of the secretly filmed videos had been printed out and stuck to a toilet wall at the bar, along with her personal details, including her phone number.

The poster also included other very personal information about the woman, expressed in “very unflattering terms,” said Mr Evans. “That had been put up in the toilet of a bar for all to see,” said Mr Evans.

The barrister then outlined how, the following day, as police took a statement from the distressed woman at her Carlisle home, they received a call confirming that the same poster had been displayed on a nearby bus stop.

During the four-day trial, the jury heard about four of the defendant’s sexual encounters with the woman, which happened in various locations.

At no point, the woman told the jury, was she ever aware that Clarke was filming what they were doing and nor did she ever give consent.

In his evidence, Clarke confirmed that he had started working at a north Cumbrian secondary school in 2014 and the sexual contact with the woman began after they met during a night out in Carlisle.

She recalled asking him how long he had been single, and he said for about a year, though he suggested the question was inappropriate.

The woman said Clarke told her that he was married but was at that point separated from his wife, and he and his former partner were at that stage sleeping in separate rooms. 

The jury heard evidence about the sexual contact between Clarke and the woman, and how he secretly videoed this on his phone on four occasions.

Referring to those videos, Mr Evans asked the woman: “Were you aware of any of them?” The woman replied: “No, not at the time.”

As he opened the case, Mr Evans said the videos at the heart of the case were in themselves evidence that she was not at any stage aware that she was being filmed at the time. At no point did she look directly at the camera phone.

The barrister also said that the defendant had a body of material on a mass storage device which showed he was interested in "kinky films" which involved him having sex with two former partners.

Read more: Teacher working in north Cumbria goes on trial for voyeurism

During one sexual encounter with the victim of the Carlisle offence, said the prosecutor, the woman's face was briefly seen more clearly, but the phone was then quickly put down.

The prosecutor referred to exchanges of WhatsApp messages between Clarke and the woman in which he asked her for intimate pictures, which she categorically refused to provide.

“She made it clear she was not prepared to do that,” said the barrister, pointing out that the woman likened the defendant’s behaviour to that of a teenager.

Asked about the idea that she in some way consented to being filmed while she was naked or involved in sex, as claimed by the defendant, the woman said she would never get involved in making or sending such images.

“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 repeatedly told the court that the videos were made with the woman’s consent.

He recalled meeting the woman socially during a night out in Carlisle, describing her as “extremely confident” and “very complimentary” about him. “She was flirting a lot with me,” he said.

As the first guilty verdict was announced by the jury foreman, a woman in the public gallery was heard to gasp and then sob.

As he adjourned sentence until September 6, Judge Nicholas Barker told Clarke: “The jury have convicted you of four counts of you recording yourself engaging in sexual activity with [the victim without consent].

“You have also pleaded guilty, at the very last moment, to posting those images on a wall at a bar in Carlisle and at a bus stop.”

Read more: Cumbria Police highlights renewed campaign to tackle sexual offending

The judge ordered a pre-sentence report and granted Clarke bail with a condition that he must observe a daily overnight curfew at his current address, in Grovebury Farm Close, Leighton Buzzard.

This will be in force each day between 7pm and 6am and it will be electronically monitored. Clarke is also banned from having any contact with the victim.

The judge told the defendant: “Whilst I have come to the conclusion that you have shown yourself to be a glib and easy liar, and you have treated with utter callousness....those you have at times been been intimate relationships with, I am not going to remove your bail.

"But I say now, with utter clarity, that this bout of offending clearly passes the custodial threshold, and it does so by some way.

"I don’t at this stage pre-judge what the sentence will be. But you must leave this court and return on September 6 having prepared yourself for a custodial sentence. It seems to me that is an outcome this court could come to.”

The judge also thanked the jury, noting that they had as part of their service had to look at personal intimate imagery which was made without the woman's consent and then publicly displayed in a "hostile" way.