Man who spied on woman using toilet in Edinburgh McDonald's jailed for 163 days
A pensioner caught spying on a woman as she used the toilet at a McDonald’s restaurant just four months after he was convicted of a similar offence has been jailed.
David Levenson sneaked into the female toilets and peered over a cubicle to watch a mother-of-two urinating at the fast food outlet at Cameron Toll Shopping Centre in Edinburgh in August last year.
The disgusted victim looked up and spotted “a flash of white hair” as the 73-year-old pervert tried to duck back into his own cubicle without being seen.
Levenson, from the city’s Broughton area, then ran from the toilet area but was eventually caught after being recorded on the restaurant’s CCTV system as he fled.
The OAP carried out a similar offence when a woman caught him spying on her as she used the facilities at the female toilets at a McDonald’s restaurant in the capital’s city centre two years ago.
Levenson escaped jail on that occasion and was sentenced to unpaid work and placed on the sex offenders register for 12 months at a hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
But he was not so fortunate when he returned to the dock for sentencing on Wednesday after previously pleading guilty to concealing himself within the McDonald’s toilets and observing the woman doing a private act.
Solicitor Kirsty Harper, defending, told the court the social work reports stated her client had attempted to “minimise his behaviour” but said there was “a viable alternative to custody”.
Ms Harper said Levenson helped to look after his partner of 25 years, had been diagnosed as diabetic and was “in a position to pay a financial penalty”.
But Sheriff John Cook said he had no option but to impose a jail term after describing the offending as “an egregious invasion into the privacy, dignity and sense of safety for the complainer”.
Sheriff Cook said: “Then complainer was alone within the toilet cubicle when you appeared at the top of it, peering down at her as described in the Crown narrative.
“This offence is aggravated by you having been sentenced for an analogous offence only months before.”
Levenson was caged for 163 days and placed on the sex offenders register for seven years.
Previously prosecutor Gillian Koren told the court the victim attended the McDonald’s outlet with her children at the capital’s Cameron Toll Shopping Centre at around 12.30pm on August 11 last year.
Ms Koren said while waiting on her family’s food order to be prepared the woman used the toilet facilities. The fiscal said: “When [the woman] was using the toilet she became aware of shadows on the floor coming from above her and she saw the accused’s head shoot down and saw a flash of white hair.“
She was shaken and appalled by the incident and she immediately left the cubicle area. The accused was seen, after being discovered by [the woman], to quickly leave the toilet area. The witness spoke to staff and the police were contacted immediately.”
Officers attended at the restaurant and soon identified Levenson after viewing CCTV footage of him fleeing the scene. Levenson wore a mask as he gave the middle finger sign and verbally abused the waiting press as he left the court building following his guilty plea last month.