Voyeur fell out of wardrobe as pair had sex

A judge slammed Michael Hoyle and pal Jake Clancy-Winfield as “cruel” after hearing of their coarse prank on the embarrassed girl.

Hoyle, 20, hid in a bedroom wardrobe while Clancy-Winfield, 21, and the girl began kissing and then had sex at a friend’s house.

Prosecutor Oliver Thorne said the incident happened after Clancy-Winfield invited the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to a flat in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, where she spent an hour-and-a-half chatting with them as they watched television.

Clancy-Winfield asked the girl to go to bed with him shortly after a whispered conversation with Hoyle, who had left the room claiming he was going to the toilet, Leeds Crown Court heard yesterday.

Once persuaded to go to the bedroom the girl asked for the lights to be turned off but Clancy-Winfield refused.

Mr Thorne said: “He told her that the bed was broken and repeatedly asked her to change position which she thought was odd.”

The girl was horrified when the intimate session was interrupted by a man stumbling out of the wardrobe and she immediately tried to cover her dignity with a pillow.

Mr Thorne told the court: “She heard a bang and Hoyle fell out of the wardrobe.”

After the incident, on July 5, 2009, when Clancy-Winfield was 19 and Hoyle was 18, the shocked girl reported the matter to the police.

In interview, Clancy-Winfield told police he had been unaware he was being watched until halfway through the incident, but carried on anyway.

Hoyle told police he had gone into the wardrobe to get a phone and hadn’t intended to watch.

Sentencing the pair to a 12-month community order with supervision, Judge Jennifer Kershaw QC said: “As I think you are by now aware, your behaviour on that day in 2009 was not only criminal, it was also insensitive, coarse and cruel.”

The pair both of Wakefield, pleaded guilty to voyeurism at an earlier hearing. They were each also ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work and pay court costs of £150.

John Wilkinson, mitigating for Hoyle, who is on benefits, and Simon Reevell, for Clancy-Winfield, asked for their clients’ guilty pleas and good character to be taken into account.

Mr Wilkinson said Hoyle apologised to the complainant straight after the incident, had turned his life around and stopped drinking heavily with friends.