A MAN from Prestatyn followed girls and secretly filmed up their skirts, months after he had been spared jail for sexual offences including voyeurism.

Gareth Ashton also covertly filmed a young girl undressing at the beach in Prestatyn, and was found with more than 1,000 indecent images on his devices.

Today (October 25), Ashton, 39, of Victoria Road, was jailed for four years and 10 months at Caernarfon Crown Court (sitting at Llandudno Magistrates’ Court), having admitted breaching his sexual harm prevention order (SHPO).

Prosecuting, Joshua Gorst told the court that, in May 2023, Ashton was handed a suspended prison sentence and a 10-year SHPO for numerous offences, including secretly filming girls in a leisure centre changing room.

But he breached the terms of this SHPO on September 7 and 8, 2023, when he was “looking up girls’ skirts” and following them by Prestatyn railway station.

Ashton was identified from a review of closed circuit television footage (CCTV), and was arrested on September 15.

When a search was carried out at his home, 19 digital devices which had not been registered with police, as they should have been per the terms of his SHPO, were seized.

They contained 1,253 category C indecent images, and five category C indecent videos of children, primarily depicting females aged four to 10 years old.

These included “upskirting” videos from Prestatyn railway station, which matched the date and time Ashton had been seen there on CCTV, and from which he had made 196 still images.

Another was found from Prestatyn Beach, where Ashton had covertly filmed a young female child removing her clothing while there with her family, before subsequently creating 330 screenshot images from it.

Search terms he had entered on his devices, meanwhile, included: “best spy camera”, “how to record someone without them knowing”, and “back to school 2023 dates near Abergele”.

Ashton was re-arrested on April 16, 2024, when a further five unregistered devices were seized.

Defending Ashton, who had one previous conviction for eight offences, Ember-Jade Wong said he has a “very significant neurodiverse condition” which affects his cognitive ability.

This condition, she said, also affects his ability to understand the “seriousness and impact of his offending behaviour”.

Ms Wong said that Ashton, who is a carer for his mother and who has been on remand for six months, has found his time in custody “extremely difficult”

Sentencing, Judge Nicola Jones said the videos Ashton had created were particularly “of grave concern”.

“You’ve clearly targeted, in one of those, a young family on the beach, where a young female child was undressing,” she told him.

Judge Jones added that Ashton’s search terms showed he was “clearly planning the best way to take illicit and covert images of children without anybody’s permission”.

A new SHPO was issued, with additional condition that Ashton must not take any photo of any child.

His sex offenders register notification requirements were extended to last indefinitely, while lifelong restraining orders were made to protect two victims.

Police Constable Julian Tomlinson, of North Wales Police's Protection Vulnerable People Unit, said: “Parents and children should feel safe when out in public, and Ashton’s actions will no doubt have a lasting impact on the community.

“I praise the victim for supporting the investigation which has led to his conviction and will prevent him from offending again.

“We will robustly deal with those who offend against children and society’s most vulnerable people.”