East Lancashire DJ who filmed up girls' skirts avoids jail
2:25pm Tuesday 22nd July 2008
A RADIO DJ who secretly filmed a 14-year-old schoolgirl from under a desk was caught out after pupils turned their mobile phone cameras on him.
David Blaxhall, 49, was told by a judge he should be ‘thoroughly ashamed’ for his ‘disgraceful abuse of trust’.
Police said they believed his behaviour was to ‘fulfil depraved sexual fantasies’.
Child porn was also found on his computer.
The filming offence was commited while Blaxhall visited a school to teach children about radio broadcasting.
He was caught out when pupils suspicious of his behaviour filmed him with a mobile phone as he pointed a camera under the desk.
Blaxhall, who used to work as a presenter for Darwen-based The Bee and Nelson-based 2BR radio stations, was spared jail.
Sentencing the defendant to a three-year supervised community order, Judge Anthony Russell QC said he had wanted to impose a suspended jail term.
However, guidelines did not allow a community order to run alongside a suspended sentence and the judge said he believed supervision was the best option for rehabilitation in this case.
Blaxhall’s company, The Radio Surgery, went into schools and colleges across East Lancashire to teach pupils about radio broadcasting.
He committed the offence at a Blackburn school in July 2006.
Preston Crown Court heard that a girl became suspicious that he was using a camcorder under a desk to film up her skirt.
Prosecuting, Sue McKee said: “She spoke to her friend and the pupils decided not to do anything until they had proof.
"The next day, they could see he was using a camcorder and a girl used her mobile phone to record what he was doing.”
The pupils told a teacher, and the police were called.
Officers found a tape on the front seat of Blaxhall’s car, containing 41 minutes of camcorder footage from which several stills had been taken.
His personal computers were seized, and a number of indecent images of children - not related to the incident at the school - were found.
In May this year, Blaxhall, of Longridge Heath, Brierfield, pleaded guilty to four charges of taking indecent photographs, and three counts of making indecent images.
Judge Russell said: “This was a disgraceful abuse of trust which resulted in secretly taking photographs of children at the school which has resulted in considerable distress.
”Not merely to the girl and her family but to others who will wonder if there were other occasions you have done this to children at this school.
”You should be thoroughly ashamed.
”The best way of rehabilitating you is that you ought to be under supervision for three years.
”I also have come to the conclusion you have taken genuine steps to seek help.”
Defending, Gerard Doran said that Blaxhall had suffered a ‘moment of madness’ after his wife left him for another man.
He said: “He (Blaxhall) described it as ‘a period of time when my morality and good character had a bypass.’”
Mr Doran said that the amount of time for the case to come to court had caused distress to all those involved.
As well as the supervision order, Blaxhall was placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years, and given a 10-year sexual offences prevention order that bans him from associating, communicating or working with under-16s.
Speaking after the sentencing, the mother of the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: “This has taken a long time and our lives had been put on hold until today.”
Detective Constable Sue Smith from Blackburn CID said: “Blaxhall was a respected man who held a position of trust within a school environment.
He breached this trust not only towards the pupils but towards parents and teachers and he behaved in a lewd and indecent manner to fulfil his depraved sexual fantasies.”