April 2003 Pervert jailed for filming females of all ages with hidden camera A ‘wicked’ pervert who stalked young women and children in Birmingham city centre taking secret pictures up their skirts with a video camera hidden in a shopping bag has been jailed for five years. Graphic designer Nigel Cox had also downloaded tens of thousands of ‘horrendous’ images of child abuse and created his own professionally made CD-Rom for sale to paedophiles. In passing sentence, Judge Richard Wakerley QC said: ‘Images on that CD-Rom are horrendous. I do not shirk from saying that the mind that created it, including photos and text, text describing the horrific abduction, rape and murder of a little child, is truly wicked. ‘You are obsessed with pornography of the worst kind, your obsession progressed to needing the actual presence of children and hence the visits to Birmingham city centre.’ The judge also described Cox’s activities with the camera as an outrage and said he represented a potential danger to the public and little girls in particular. Cox (35) of Merridon Rise, Solihull, had admitted 34 specimen charges of making indecent images and was found guilty following a trial of six charges of possessing indecent photos of children with intent to distribute and one of having obscene articles for publication or gain. He had also previously pleaded guilty to four charges of outraging public decency. Peter Cooke, prosecuting, had told Birmingham Crown Court in July last year that a security guard in the Pallasades had noticed Cox acting in a suspicious way with a bag he was carrying. He challenged him thinking he might be a shoplifter and opened the bag. Inside he found a video camera set on a bed of foam so it was angled upwards. Cox later admitted using it to film up the skirts of females. He told police that on the day of his arrest he had filmed about ten women in their mid teens. Progressing from using a still camera, he had filmed women in the city, aged between five and 25, over several years. Cox also admitted committing indecent acts while filming. When he was arrested, police found a laptop in his car that contained obscene images of children which he had downloaded from the Internet. Benjamin Nicholls, defending, said Cox had now lost his business and home and that his relationship with his partner was now ‘up in the air.’ He said his activities in the city centre had become an addiction and that he had wanted to stop.