Leeds Olympic swim team pervert is spared jail - but banned from women’s changing rooms

Declan Crosbie was caught peering over the top of cubicles as members of the team were getting changed at a sports centre in Leeds.

A judge at Leeds Crown Court told him today he thought the public would be better protected from Crosbie by a community order rather than sending him to prison because this would guarantee he would go on a sex offenders’ treatment programme.

A previous hearing heard how a woman reported seeing Crosbie enter the changing room and members of the Chinese team, who were training at the pool ahead of the London 2012 Olympics, also made a complaint after spotting him looking over the top of cubicles while they were changing.

When staff at the centre went to find the 25-year-old, he hid in a cubicle and tried to answer them in a woman’s voice.

He then came out and begged staff not to call the police before running away.

Crosbie, from Lea Farm Place, Leeds, later handed himself in to police and pleaded guilty last month to trespass with intent to commit a sexual offence.

The defendant was jailed for three years in 2009 after trespassing in a private home and he was found standing over a sleeping student, whose trousers had been pulled down.

He also has convictions for voyeurism in 2005 and 2006.

Today, the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC, said the 2009 jail sentence was passed in the hope Crosbie would be sent on a treatment course but it never happened.

Giving him a three-year community order, Judge Collier said this would guarantee he would attend the course.

He said: “I’m satisfied it is on the public interest and long term interest of better protection of the public that I make a community order in your case today.”

The judge barred him from entering any female changing area or toilet for five years.

At the last hearing, the judge queried if the case should be dealt with under special fast-track Olympic rules.

He said it was technically an Olympic offence but there was no suggestion the defendant knew who the women were.

Crosbie sat listening to the judge in the dock dressed in a grey suit and black tie, flanked by a security officer.

The court was told he was already on the sex offenders’ register.