A miniature train collector who tried to film a showering schoolgirl was sentenced from his home as he sat next to his model railway.
Peeping tom Carl Fisher claimed he had taped over the recording light on the camera device because he did not want to offend other model railway buffs.
But a sheriff found the Tesco delivery driver guilty of setting up a covert camera in a bid to secretly film a 15-year-old girl while she was naked in a bathroom.
Fisher was allowed to set up his living room in Devon as an impromptu courtroom to prevent him having to travelling to Perth Sheriff Court during the pandemic.
A number of the scale replica trains - referred to during his trial - could clearly be seen in the background as he was ordered to carry out 110 hours unpaid work.
Fisher was also placed on the Sex Offenders Register and under supervision for two years and told to attend the Maps for Change programme.
The 54-year-old was found guilty of using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices towards the youngster during an incident dating back to April 2008.
He was found guilty of concealing a digital recording device inside a laundry pile in the bathroom of the 15-year-old's house and trying to record her.
But he was found out when the girl moved the clothes heap with her foot and noticed Fisher's camera which had been set up to film the room.
A black piece of tape had been stuck on top of the camera to hide its red recording light - and Fisher later claimed that was because of his model train set.
Fisher, from Paignton, claimed he had accidentally left the camera in the girl's bathroom on another occasion and had taped over the light after being abused online by fellow model train fans.
"I had been filming my train layout," he said during evidence. Trains don't go through red lights. I had been criticised online about the red light, so I had put some tape over it."
The girl said Fisher had used the bathroom before she went in to shower. She told the court she heard a tearing sound, which she said may have been the tape.
Inside, she saw the pile of clothes on the floor and kicked them and "felt something solid." She picked up the camera, which was recording, and went to confront Fisher.
Fisher later confessed what he had done to the girl's mother. Sheriff Pino di Emidio told Fisher he found the young victim and her mum to be credible witnesses.
He believed the incident took place in 2008, and not 2012 as Fisher had claimed.
When questioned about the date, the mum had told the trial: "I remember thinking, she's not even 16 yet."
Sheriff di Emidio said he did not believe Fisher's version of events and had no problem finding him guilty after the conclusion of a two day trial.
Fisher was convicted of entering the girl's bathroom - knowing that she was about to have a shower - and secreting a camera within a pile of clothing "affording a view of the bathroom" with the intention of recording the teenager while she was in a state of undress.
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