DI Neil Corbel
(Picture: Metropolitan Police)A former counter-terrorism police officer who used hidden cameras in glasses, clocks, an air freshener, and phone chargers to secretly record naked models at photoshoots has been jailed for three years.
Detective Inspector Neil Corbel, 40, posed as a pilot with an interest in photography when making bookings through the Purple Port modelling website, setting up shoots in hotel rooms, AirBnbs, and private flats.
He had rigged the rooms in advance with hidden cameras, primed to film the models as they undressed and posed for him, believing he was only taking tasteful still photographs.
Three of the victims attended at Isleworth crown court to see Corbel being sentenced, and angrily spoke of their betrayal at being targeted by a serving police officer.
One of the women revealed bald spots on her head where she had torn her own hair out through anxiety, telling the judge: “Women, especially models and sex workers, tend to struggle to report sex crimes to police.
“He knew we were potentially easy, quiet prey. So, how can I tell women to trust police when this man has shaken my beliefs?”
Corbel, who has resigned from the Met Police, has admitted a series of voyeurism charges against 19 women.
Jailing him for three years, Judge Martin Edmunds QC, Recorder of Kensington and Chelsea, said “derived satisfaction” from breaking the women’s clearly defined photoshoot boundaries.
“You used your charisma, charm, and humour to gain their trust”, he said.
“It’s clear the revelation to your victims that you were a serving police officer has for many of them seriously undermined their trust in the police.”
“I can’t possibly overstate how violated I feel and how much of an impact his actions have had on me”, said one victim.
“Other women will lose trust in their colleagues, husbands, fathers – Neil – and above all the police. It has derailed my life.”
Another of the women said Corbel’s actions have affected her modelling career, leaving her unable to trust male photographers and constantly anxious about hidden cameras.
“I can’t check every object in the room in which the shoot takes place to see if it is recording”, she said. “I have become paranoid, affecting my work and mental health, and I feel there’s no solution to this.”
She added: “The fact the defendant is a police officer has shocked and scared me. He is supposed to enforce the law not break it.”
Other victims mentioned the murder of Sarah Everard at the hands of a Met Police officer, saying finding out they had been targeted by Corbel was “scary”.
“This feels like a very frightening time to be a woman”, said one. “If we can’t turn to the police to protect us, what are we supposed to do?”
Corbel, who is suspected of using his counter-terrorism police training to carry out the offences, made the covert films over the course of three years, between 2017 and 2020, and later admitted to detectives he had a long-standing pornography addiction.
Prosecutor Babatunde Alabi said the offences came to light when one of the models attended a photoshoot at the Leonardo Royal hotel in Tower Bridge with Corbel – who used the alias Harrison – in November 2019 and noticed a suspicious clock not showing the right time.
“She went to the bathroom and conducted internet research on the clock’s brand”, said Mr Alabi. “The first results were spyware.
“It was described as high-end spyware video recording devices which could be controlled from a smartphone.”
The woman later reported Corbel to police, who discovered a slew of videos on a hard drive featuring 51 women. Officers identified 16 models and three sex workers who feature in the charges against the officer, and said they were oblivious to the nude and sometimes explicit videos being made.
The court heard cameras were disguised as a clock, a watch, air freshener, phone charger, keys, and a box of tissues, which Corbel used to take hours of video footage of the naked women.
One victim was filmed by a total of nine devices when she posed for Corbel and later engaged in consensual sex, totally unaware that she was being recorded.
“I am so angry with myself that I didn’t notice the cameras and fell for his lies”, she said, adding that memories of that night “make my stomach churn”.
Edward Henry QC, representing Corbel, said the police officer had served for 13 years and helped to bring terrorists to justice, adding that his crimes “went against his deepest values to serve and help others”.
He said Corbel’s sex addiction “overwhelmed him and eventually destroyed his career, almost destroyed him, and has caused unbearable pain not just to the victims but to his undeserving, loyal, compassionate wife and family.”
Mr Henry added that Corbel co-operated with the police investigation while offering up incriminating evidence, and he accepts the victims’ “fury because of their feelings of being abused, humiliated, taken advantage of, and disrespected”.
Corbel, from Hertfordshire, has admitted to 19 counts of voyeurism. He will be on the sexual offenders register for life, and subject to a sexual harm prevention order for the next seven years. This order includes a ban on photographing women without first telling them about his conviction.
