A BRENTWOOD businessman caught with more than 100 up-skirt film clips of women has expressed remorse for his behaviour and described how he "went off the rails".
Sex addict Nicholas Holt, who owns the Brentwood Computer Repairs Shop in Ropers Yard, off Hart Street, was arrested after he was observed using his mobile phone to film up a female commuter's skirt on an escalator at Tottenham Court Road Underground Station.
Staff at the station had been alerted by a member of the public who said he had seen Holt, 41, filming the woman while trying to hide his phone in a newspaper.
Two films were found on his phone, one of the woman he was seen to be filming and one of another victim recorded at the same station.
Prosecutor Zoe Jacob told Westminster Magistrates' Court last week: "The first was footage of the lower legs of a white, western European female walking along the platform.
"It was clear that the station was Tottenham Court Road. The woman was then seen walking up the stairs in the footage.
"You can see her underwear, she was wearing a white thong – you can see her buttocks."
Ms Jacob added that the second video was also an up-skirt recording showing a woman's underwear and bottom.
Police found 128 similar up-skirt film clips on hard disks when they searched Holt's home, although they have been unable to charge him because the women in these clips cannot be identified.
Andrew Moxon, defending, told the court his client had taken steps to try to deal with his sexual addiction, explaining that, since his arrest, Holt had been seeing a counsellor at the Marylebone Centre in London.
"He immediately expressed relief at being caught because that meant that he could now, in the open, get the help that he needed," Mr Moxon said.
"He himself went out to get himself a mobile phone that doesn't have a camera."
Holt had previously admitted a single count of outraging public decency at Westminster Magistrates' Court on March 30.
When he was sentenced last week, Holt, of Brook Road, Romford, was made the subject of a 12-month supervision order and told to undertake a specified sexual offending course.
The Gazette visited Holt at his shop last week to ask if he would like to comment.
He subsequently e-mailed us a statement, which read: "I am extremely remorseful of what I did when I went off the rails.
"I intend to repay society in full. I deeply regret any inconvenience caused but I am extremely grateful to all my friends and family who have helped and stood by me.
"For the last six months already I have undertaken many counselling services to establish why, and I have taken preventative steps to ensure it's impossible for this to happen again."
