This is a Twofer: man exploiting mixed-sex changing rooms is a Met Police officer

[PurgatoryOfPotholes]

You'll often see it said that surely mixed-sex/unisex/gender-neutral facilities cannot be an issue for any of us if they have cubicles.

Well they are an issue. The increased feeling of vulnerability that women report is not just a feeling, it is a reality. Some of you may be aware that Primark has made its changing rooms unisex in order to side-step the issue of whether male transitioners should use female changing rooms.

Since then, I have been seeing Primark's name pop up more regularly in newspaper reports of voyeurism and sexual assault. Not sure if the board have noticed or care.

But this case is more extreme than most.

extract

A Met Police officer has admitted possessing extreme child pornography and filming a woman undressing on his mobile phone in the changing rooms at Primark.

(continues)

The court was told the police officer was arrested on Wednesday after a woman at a Primark shop in Wandsworth heard a rustling sound in the cubicle next door to hers as she tried on clothing.

Prosecutor Hussain Suleman said: 'She looked underneath and saw there was a gap and a black mobile phone with its camera up. She began to scream and said 'are you recording me' She heard a response and he said no.'

Mr Suleman said the woman alerted her boyfriend who called security. Chaudhry was held by security officers until police arrived and he was arrested.

It was then discovered that Chaudhry had a cache of other upskirting videos in his possession. He also had child and bestiality porn.

His home in Wimbledon was searched and police found 50-100 moving and still indecent images of children at category A, the most serious kind. They also found thousands of category B and C images and pornography involving sex with animals.

The images were found on numerous devices in a box on his bedroom shelf, including four USB sticks, two Nokia mobile phones, two storage devices, two laptops and two iPhones.

The 36-year-old faced a total of five charges when he appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates Court this morning following his arrest at a Primark store in Wandsworth, south west London on March 30.

Prosecutor Hussain Suleman told the court Chaudhry could face further charges as electronic devices and mobile phones found in his home have yet to be examined and are suspected of containing more indecent images.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10676217/Met-police-officer-36-caught-filming-woman-undressed-Primark.html

Was he in the women’s changing rooms? The article doesn’t say.

Apparently they are all mixed sex now. I wonder if they can justify that.

Bloody hell that’s horrific. Hope they throw the bloody book at him.

^ OP says Some of you may be aware that Primark has made its changing rooms unisex in order to side-step the issue of whether male transitioners should use female changing rooms.

You'd think I wouldn't be shocked by the Met by now, but I am. It's unspeakably disgusting.
They must realise they attract these sorts of horrific predators, they need to actively do something to weed them out.

@SuperSleepyBaby

Was he in the women’s changing rooms? The article doesn’t say.

Primark doesn't have separate changing rooms any more. It's one room of cubicles for everyone to use. They started the switch over in 2019, and now it's countrywide, as far as I know.

My local store does very clearly label that they're mixed-sex, so I'll give them that. They didn't used to.

www.goodto.com/wellbeing/wellbeing-news/primark-unisex-changing-rooms-484319

I care. Very glad I was brought up with a dash of contempt for the fuckers.

Bloody hell!

Uniqlo and Gap have (had) rows of cubicles for everyone, but I think with floor to ceiling walls and doors.

OBVIOUSLY there will be men and teen boys behaving badly if there is a gap. It’s just obvious. With or without the Trans issues. Especially given that Primark has a big teen boy market.

This is the brave new world for women and girls. Open season for predators facilitated by the useful idiots.

Several years ago I remember hearing a brief ‘debate’ in the house of commons on the desire of transwomen to use female facilities. An MP answered very smugly that there was no reason to think that would increase crimes against women and that in any case, any crimes would be a matter for the police.

Since then women have been raped by male prisoners in ‘women-only’ prisons. Female children have been raped in women’s toilets by male teenagers identifiying as female. And a female hospital patient was raped in her ‘women’s ward’ by a man identifying as female.

I often think of that MP and her smug little ‘that would be a matter for the police’ shrug. As if it doesn’t matter that when you give all men access to all women’s spaces you increase the number of sex crimes that take place. Increase the number of women living with sexual trauma and physical injury for life.

Politicians of all parties have a lot to answer for. They have failed to protect women.

I wonder if that could be indirect discrimination. If women are affected more by the mixed sex policy, then it constitutes discrimination.

HomeHomeInTheRange

OBVIOUSLY there will be men and teen boys behaving badly if there is a gap. It’s just obvious. With or without the Trans issues. Especially given that Primark has a big teen boy market.

Well, you'd think it would be obvious. It's got to the point that when I saw a headline about this case, I thought, "it's going to be Primark again". And hey presto, it was Primark and their unisex changing rooms. Again.

I wonder how many incidents there are each year in which the men spying through cracks in the curtain don't get caught.

I’m in Ireland and our Primark / Pennys still has separate male and female changing rooms.

Could I suggest that everyone with a twitter account shares this article on Primark’s timeline and ask if women and girls are safe in their changing facilities.

Super see if you can hold the line on that, if they try to make the same change in Ireland. Not only has it had the entirely predictable results, I think it's attracted a terrible class of customer they did not need. There have been a surprising number of press reports of children (of both sexes) and women being sexually assaulted on Primark's shop floors.

I cannot prove it, but I believe these to be men who developed the habit of going to Primark to spy, and who then, like sexual offenders usually do, escalated their offending.

@MangoSeason

Could I suggest that everyone with a twitter account shares this article on Primark’s timeline and ask if women and girls are safe in their changing facilities.

Could I suggest everyone write to Primark as well and complain.

Email their customer service email and demand to have your complaint forwarded onto senior management. (They won’t of course,) However, maybe they will get enough complaints that they will have to actually acknowledge it is not ok.

It's shocking that I'm not shocked.
We're told we aren't at risk because the shop will take action IF we report someone to them. But countless women on this Met policeman's phone didn't realise what's was happening. We need actual safe guarding not lip service.

@ElBandito

It's shocking that I'm not shocked. We're told we aren't at risk because the shop will take action IF we report someone to them. But countless women on this Met policeman's phone didn't realise what's was happening. We need actual safe guarding not lip service.

Why has all knowledge of safeguarding disappeared?

Sadly, no, of course it's a familiar refrain that it's a Met Officer.

A police officer you say?

(Scratches head)

There's an AIBU thread on this:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4519479-to-ask-why-he-was-in-the-changing-room-next-door

There are preditors out there. This is why women are a protected sex class. This is why women need private spaces.

[quote DisappearingGirl]There's an AIBU thread on this:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4519479-to-ask-why-he-was-in-the-changing-room-next-door[/quote]
Thank you! I didn't know about that.

I wonder how much info they're prepared for about sexual assaults in Primarks.

@HomeHomeInTheRange

Bloody hell!

Uniqlo and Gap have (had) rows of cubicles for everyone, but I think with floor to ceiling walls and doors.

OBVIOUSLY there will be men and teen boys behaving badly if there is a gap. It’s just obvious. With or without the Trans issues. Especially given that Primark has a big teen boy market.

It is not all about the gap.

If a man has been in the cubicle before you and installed a camera, how would you know?

Especially when they are so small and being made smaller every day.

Thousands of women and girls can be captured without their consent before a perpetrator slips up as in this case and gets caught.

I recommend reading this

theviolenceofpornography.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-perversions-of-men.html?m=1

OBVIOUSLY there will be men and teen boys behaving badly if there is a gap. It’s just obvious. With or without the Trans issues. Especially given that Primark has a big teen boy market.

I don't think this kind of thing is a trans issue though. As all the "we've been using the ladies for years" conversations show - transwomen have been around for a long time. It isn't about retorting back "we can always tell" it is about the fact that up to now it hasn't been a problem for the most part. Because in that respect they want to get in and out and use the loos/changing rooms in the same way everyone else does.

The problem is, as i see it, the fact that if we say "anyone can say they are a woman and use female sexed facilities" then we leave everything open to people not being challenged on using these facilities, and getting their kicks that way because nobody, including any transwomen who are there, can challenge them.

So the problem isn't transwomen, the problem is predatory men taking advantage of the new rules to be ... predatory men.

I know that there are other issues around people using single sex female facilities as a transwoman that mean some groups of women can no longer use them, and we need to find a sensible way around that. But i do think there is a huge difference between transwomen who had to use the "old route" to getting a GRA (living as a woman for 2 years) over having the ability to say "on Wednesdays i will wear womanhood" and being an abusive creep.

There is a way forward, but there need to be grown up conversations where the extremists are not given room to talk at any great length. Right now i can't see it happening.

FWIW: i'm in small-town Germany. Even when i go to large-city Germany and go to C&A for my jeans, the changing rooms are not single sex, but there are changing rooms in, say, the section with lingerie etc, so you could imagine they're single sex. But they aren't. Occasionally i see men go in them to try things on (never seen someone try on frillies though) and they deffo go in to sit on the seats to see what their wives/gfs try on. But i have never yet encountered a problem. Women wearing Hijabs also use the spaces so I'm going to assume that for at least some Muslim women it's ok.

(i am not saying things don't happen, i am just saying I've not experienced it)

@Brefugee it is a trans issue, though.

Shop chains making their changing rooms mixed sex as opposed to separate male and female facilities is a result of their decision to avoid the "who uses which" question, precisely because of transactivism.

The shops try to avoid the problem by saying everyone, whatever their sex and however they identify, can all muck in together. Closing their eyes and ears to any risks inherent in that policy.