RICHARD SCHICKHOFER OF GLENROTHES SENTENCED FOR FILMING YOUNG GIRLS IN SWIMMING POOL CHANGING ROOMS

In March 2016, Richard Schickhofer, a resident of Muirfield Drive in Glenrothes, was sentenced to prison for secretly filming young girls in changing rooms at a Fife leisure centre. Schickhofer, a nursing student, concealed his mobile phone by placing it in his shoe and pushing it under a partition at Michael Woods Sports and Leisure Centre in Viewfield, Glenrothes. His goal was to record naked youngsters as they changed over several months.

The illicit activities came to light when a 15-year-old girl observed a dark-colored shoe placed under her cubicle door with a mobile phone inside. She kicked the shoe away and informed a friend, who then alerted a lifeguard. The lifeguard suspected the man and cooperated with police investigations.

Authorities recovered multiple devices, including two mobile phones and computers, belonging to Schickhofer. They found videos showing females undressing, some of which remained unidentified. One video, dated December 14, 2014, depicted a girl drying herself in a cubicle and aged between 14 and 18 years. Another, from March 10, 2015, lasting 67 seconds, showed Schickhofer adjusting a recording device inside a locker room with two females: an adult and a girl estimated to be between 12-15 years old. A third video, over nine minutes long, displayed Schickhofer positioning his camouflaged device while a 15-year-old girl entered a cubicle, removed her swimsuit, and was identified by a police officer analyzing the footage.

At court, Schickhofer admitted to operating recording equipment with the intent to spy on a 15-year-old girl on March 10 last year, as well as on other unidentified females between December 2014 and March 2015 at the same centre. He claimed the changing room design facilitated his actions, but Sheriff Charles MacNair dismissed this, stating, "You put part of the blame on the design of the changing room but the blame is entirely on you."

The sheriff emphasized that advances in technology have made such offenses easier and that the sentence aimed to serve as a deterrent. Schickhofer was sentenced to nine months in prison, placed on the sex offenders register for ten years, and subject to a sexual offenders protection order banning him from using mixed-changing areas during that period. Schickhofer, originally from Austria and a former student at Fife College, had intended to pursue a nursing career but had since left his course.