A Peeping Tom left a young woman “frozen and alarmed” after she caught him spying on her as she used a public toilet at one of Scotland’s flagship department stores.
Benjamin-Cornel Teglas, 20, peered at the shocked woman from under a cubicle after he had sneaked his way into the female toilets at the John Lewis outlet in Edinburgh city centre.
Teglas then ran from the area after the 22-year-old victim, who cannot be identified due to legal reasons, shouted at him following the incident in May this year.
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The woman alerted staff at the store and police officers eventually caught up with the pervert later that day after viewing CCTV and identifying him.
Teglas appeared with the aid of a Romanian interpreter at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Wednesday where he pleaded guilty to the voyeurism charge.
Prosecutor India McLean told the court the victim and her sister were shopping within the John Lewis store when they decided to go to the toilet area at around 2.20pm on May 27 this year.
Ms McLean said Teglas had earlier been spotted loitering around the area and was seen to be “checking around to see if anyone was there” before entering the female toilet.
The victim then “unknowingly” took the cubicle next to the one Teglas was in and locked the door behind her. The fiscal depute said: “She then looked down and seen Mr Teglas with his head under her cubicle.
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“She was initially frozen and alarmed and has then shouted ‘what do you think you are doing?’ Mr Teglas held her eye contact and stared at her for a few seconds before removing his head back into his own cubicle.”
The woman fled the toilet area and Teglas was said to have “eventually peered out from his own cubicle and has then made off from the toilet”.
The court was told CCTV footage reviewed by police showed Teglas had spent a total of 18 minutes within the female toilets at the store.
Teglas, of the capital’s Wester Hailes area, was later traced and arrested and charged by police and made no reply to caution.
Sheriff Peter McCormack placed Teglas on the Sex Offenders Register and deferred sentence for social work reports and a restriction of liberty order assessment to next month.
Teglas pleaded guilty to observing a woman doing a private act after entering the female toilet area at John Lewis, St James Quarter, Edinburgh, on May 27 this year.
