Sailor pleads guilty over toilet pictures

A 28-year-old Navy electronics technician who filmed his female colleagues showering and using the toilet aboard a vessel has pleaded guilty to charges of making intimate visual recordings and storing them on his laptop.

Electronic technician David Timothy Simpson pleaded guilty to a total of 25 charges at a court martial at Devonport naval base in Auckland this morning.

Simpson was marched into the court martial by military police where he appeared before Judge Anne Gaskell and a panel of three Navy officers.

The hearing had been set down for three days but Simpson's guilty pleas means the hearing is no longer necessary.

The three military members have accepted the pleas.

The court martial was told Simpson was able to remove a panel at the back of a cubicle in the men's ablution area.

Behind the panel was a narrow walkway which he walked down before finding a crack in the wall.

According to the agreed summary of facts, Simpson was able to look through the crack and hole and see into the women's shower and toilet area.

He made at least 12 videos of women on the toilet and in the shower on his iPhone and later transferred them to his personal laptop.

Simpson was caught out when three other crew members noticed the panel had been disturbed and found him in the passageway.

"The accused acknowledged that he was looking through the hole."

Simpson was challenged by one of the crew who told him "they're only girls".

Simpson responded: "Not all of them are" and promised that he would not do it again.

The matter was referred up the chain of command.

Simpson's phone and laptop were seized and 49 videos, made over two days, were found.

Judge Gaskell passed wide-ranging suppressing orders in the case, meaning APNZ cannot identify the navy ship, its mission, when the offending happened, who was on board, the ages of those on board and the number of women on board.