Paramedic sacked after blaming his own infant son for filming a woman under a swimming pool changing cubicle

NewsUK News A PARAMEDIC has been struck off after he filmed a woman in a swimming pool changing cubicle and blamed his infant son. Benjamin Southam recorded the woman under the cubicle wall for 10-20 seconds while she was getting undressed with her son for his swimming lesson. He claimed his son was responsible after the woman noticed the IPhone with a red recording light under the wall between the two cubicles. The mother ran out of her cubicle and banged on the door of Southam’s telling him to stop. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! He repeatedly claimed “his baby had been holding the phone” and even told the same to the leisure centre when they called him. Southam later admitted to police that he had held the phone under the wall for 10 to 20 seconds for a video he had since deleted. He was convicted of voyeurism at Ipswich Crown Court in June last year and handed an 18-month community order alongside a sexual harm prevention order for five years. He will also be added to the sex offenders’ register for five years. The paramedic worked in Thetford, Norfolk, but has since been removed from the paramedics’ register. He did not attend his hearing with the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service but a representative said he had been struggling with his mental health and experiencing suicidal thoughts. Most read in The Sun Southam claimed he wasn’t trying to record the woman but wanted to “elicit a response” from the woman in order to get a “break from his suicidal thoughts”. He was not at work or in uniform at the time. The panel concluded that Southam was not remorseful and had not taken any remedial action even though he hoped to return to being a paramedic. It said: “Whilst [he] had entered a late plea in the criminal proceedings and was credited a reduction in his sentence for doing so, this did not demonstrate any element of insight as he had initially attempted to blame his young son and the late guilty plea may have been entered to mitigate his sentence. “As such the panel could find no evidence whatsoever that [he] has sought to remediate his actions. “The conclusion of the panel was that there is a high risk of repeating the established conduct. [His] fitness to practise is therefore impaired in respect of the personal component. “The panel agreed that a member of the public would be horrified to know that a paramedic attending to them or their loved ones in an emergency situation had been convicted of such an offence and was on the sex offenders register.”