Ex-Scout leader who filmed kids getting undressed in pool changing room jailed

13 February 2024 , 12:34

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Ian Butcher watched children get undressed inside swimming changing rooms (Image: PA)

An ex-scout leader who filmed kids as young as 12 getting undressed has been jailed for preying upon vulnerable children and adults in swimming pool changing rooms.

Ian Butcher, 55, from Ipswich, has been jailed for 20 months after he committed several sex offences, including filming adults whilst they showered. The former leader targeted eight people, who were aged between 12 and 32, for a period of 19 months. Six of his victims were children and two of them were adults.

Officers from Sussex Police said it was clear he had a "sexual interest in juveniles". Clips of his mainly underage victims were found on his phone, they added. The first incident was reported by a teenage girl in December 2022. She said Butcher had filmed her over the top of a cubicle in the changing rooms of a swimming pool, and that this had happened a number of years earlier.

Detectives began an investigation, with Butcher arrested in January 2023. His phone was seized and police found 11 videos of voyeurism, mostly filmed in swimming pool changing cubicles. There were also 20 screenshots from the videos, capturing moments when nudity was visible. Officers identified eight victims from the footage but were unable to ascertain who six further people in the footage were.

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Ipswich Crown Court was told Butcher was a Scout leader at the time of his offending and had been involved with the Scout Association for almost 40 years, reaching the level of assistant district commissioner. Butcher admitted at an earlier hearing to four sexual offence charges, numbering two indecent image counts and two of voyeurism.

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He was sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court on Monday to 20 months in prison. He was also made the subject of a 10-year sexual harm prevention order. Detective Constable Santiago Nield, from the Internet Child Abuse Investigation Team, said: "Ian Butcher was a person in a position of trust and in the majority of the cases we identified, his offences involved a clear abuse of that trust.

"The crimes we discovered took place over a period of almost two years, so his offending was persistent for a significant length of time. Although not all of the victims were children, the majority were and so he clearly had a sexual interest in juveniles." He also praised the "bravery" of the girl who first reported Butcher's offending, adding this was "crucial" to his crimes being uncovered.

Monica Charsley