Richmond pool lifeguard ‘used camera hidden in water bottle to spy on children changing’

Jedrzej Malis
Jedrzej Malis, 39, was caught out as he tried to film a 10-year-old girl putting on her swimming costume in a cubicle at the Pool on the Park lido
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A lifeguard at a popular Richmond swimming pool used a camera hidden in a water bottle to spy on bathers in the changing rooms, a court heard.  

Jedrzej Malis, 39, was caught out as he tried to film a 10-year-old girl putting on her swimming costume in a cubicle at the Pool on the Park lido in January.  

Malis initially denied doing anything wrong, claiming he had been doing maintenance work on the changing facilities at the Grade II listed pool in Old Deer Park.  

But he later confessed to multiple incidents of voyeurism over the course of a year, as well as having a child sexual abuse video among a cache of pornography on his work laptop.  

At Kingston crown court last week, Malis was handed a four-month prison sentence suspended for two years and ordered to attend rehab sessions to address his sexual offending.  

“This was a gross violation of privacy”, said Judge Elaine Coello. “It was also a gross abuse of trust because you were working in a capacity where children and adults expected to place their trust and confidence in you as a lifeguard, and certainly didn’t expect you to engage in behaviour of this perverted nature.”

Malis was sacked by Richmond Council after his arrest on January 12, when he had been spotted by a 10-year-old girl’s father behaving strangely in the changing rooms shortly after finishing a shift.  

Prosecutor Nicholas Hall said Malis was seen occupying cubicles next to the girl, even after she moved to get away from him.  

“A sports bag the defendant had was on the floor of his cubicle and appeared to be being pushed to some degree under the partition”, he said.  

Police later searched Malis’ home and found a “covert camera” hidden inside a plastic water bottle which had been used to record victims from within the sports bag.  

Officers found a video of the ten-year-old girl as well as other clips of adults and children getting changed, taken between January 2019 and his arrest a year later.  

Malis also volunteered to the police that he had downloaded a 12 minute video of two children being sexually abused.  

Lucy Daniels, mitigating, said Polish-born Malis had “lost his equilibrium” after being threatened at work and witnessing a swimmer almost drowning in the pool when he was on duty.  

“He started having different thoughts and going to a dark place in his mind”, she said. “He considered suicide and was a very different person to the professional, educated, hard-working person he normally was.”

Malis, from Richmond, pleaded guilty to four counts of voyeurism and one charge of making an indecent image of a child.  

He was ordered to attend 30 days of a rehabilitation course, as well as up to 100 days of a programme to tackle sexual offending.  

Judge Coello put him on the sex offender register for the next seven years and also imposed a sexual harm prevention order for the next five years.  

When news of the case first emerged, Richmond Council said its leisure staff “have undergone further detailed safeguarding training” and a full review of our procedures and processes had been carried out.  

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