A student who wore a female rubber mask while spying on women in shopping centre toilets has escaped jail.
Joel Hardman, 22, also put on a jet-black wig so he could slip into the women's toilets unnoticed at the Bullring, Birmingham.
The MA student, described in court as an intelligent man, got sexual gratification from listening to women use the toilet - and even made audio recordings.
Hardman, who had previously admitted watching someone during a private act for his own sexual gratification, said he initially went into the University of Birmingham's women's toilets.
But one month before he was caught, he switched to the Bullring - which saw 276,000 people visit on the day it opened - because it was 'busier'.
Hardman was finally caught out in the pale skin mask and black wig by a female shopper on April 3.
She reported to a shopping centre employee that she had seen someone looking like a 'mannequin' enter the women's toilets.
Security officers caught Hardman as he attempted to make for the exit after bursting from a cubicle.
The postgraduate student confessed that he liked to 'listen to ladies urinate'.
He was also found to have taken three pictures on his mobile phone of women's feet under the cubicle walls - and even had a bizarre audio recording that appeared to be the sound of a toilet flushing.
Jonathan Purser, prosecuting, said: 'Many people saw this gentleman wearing a mask and wig. Some were frightened at his appearance.'
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