Andrew Corish, 60, walked free despite filming school girls while they were entering an exam hall
Three former convent schoolgirls want an urgent change in the law after their teacher escaped justice for filming up pupils’ skirts.
Assistant head Andrew Corish, 60, used a mobile phone to peer between the legs of children at the Catholic girls’ school while they queued to enter an exam hall.
But despite pleading guilty at a magistrates’ court to voyeurism, Corish walked free after a judge at Crown court rejected his plea when he appeared for sentencing.
Judge Warwick McKinnon said voyeurism must involve ‘observing a private act for sexual gratification’, but none of the victims were undertaking a private act.Prosecutors applied for indecent images charges to be added, but the judge said the images were not ‘of an indecent nature’.
Now Corish’s former student Claudia Merlini, 22, and her friends, 21-year-old twins Holly and Kerry Brown, want lawmakers to act.
The country’s most senior police officer, MPs and more than 70,000 people who signed a national petition launched after a separate incident at a music festival have also called for changes to deal with ‘upskirting’.
‘It’s completely outrageous,’ Miss Merlini said. ‘It is a remarkable loophole in the law and some men are clearly benefiting from it.
‘He admitted his actions were for his own sexual gratification. It should be illegal. He was not immediately banned from teaching and he will not appear on a sex offenders’ list.’
Corish was suspended by Coloma Convent Girls’ School in Shirley near Croydon, south London, after an incident in June 2015. He was accused of filming up the skirt of a 14-year-old girl. In April 2016 Corish, who had since resigned, admitted a single count of voyeurism at Croydon Magistrates’ Court.
He walked free from Crown court weeks later. Miss Merlini and her friends, who don’t believe they themselves were victims, only learned of his fate when their former teacher faced a professional disciplinary panel recently. The National College for Teaching and Leadership misconduct panel was told he admits all the allegations in a witness statement and he faces a ban.
Claudia Merlini, centre, with Holly (left) and Kerry Brown (right) who were all pupils of Andrew Corish
He said he used a phone ‘to film up the skirt of one or more pupils’ and stored ‘one or more inappropriate images taken up the skirts of pupils, including videos’.
Miss Merlini, a filmmaker from Caterham, Surrey, said she fears other pupils may have been victims without realising it. Kerry Brown added: ‘We want the law changed and changed fast.’ Justice Secretary David Lidington has said he is taking legal advice on whether ‘upskirting’ can be added to the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
The school in Shirley, near Croydon, south London, where Corish filmed schoolgirls
The issue was thrust into the spotlight by Gina Martin, 25, who launched a petition after someone took a photo up her skirt at a Hyde Park festival. She claimed police told her there was nothing they could do as the man involved had ‘done nothing illegal’.
Labour MP Sarah Jones raised the issue at Parliament earlier this week with Scotland Yard Commissioner Cressida Dick who told MPs new laws are needed.
Miss Jones, the MP for Croydon Central, said: ‘Of course “upskirting” should be illegal, it is undeniably a form of sexual abuse.’
Corish, who lives with his wife in a £600,000 five-bedroom home in Caterham, declined to comment.
The school said it had strengthened its safeguarding procedures.