A SHOP director covertly filmed an underage model getting changed, a court has found.

Adrian Drabble, 62, was found guilty of recording the 15-year-old girl for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification, when he appeared at Hereford Magistrates Court.

Drabble, director of Crystal Carpets, also ran a small modelling agency and the filming was revealed when a young model found a mobile phone recording in a changing room she was using at the Ledbury shop.

The mother of the young model branded Drabble a 'scumbag' and said the family had faced a long and traumatic wait for justice.

She said: “When our daughter phoned us from the shoot, I felt sick. I thought – Oh my God, yes, she’s right – this is happening.

"I just said, get out as soon as possible. She just told them she was ill and then she rang the police herself, and they were brilliant about it. They raided the place immediately.

“Now I can’t tell you of the relief, like a weight has been lifted off our shoulders. It stressed us out and my daughter’s exams suffered as a result; yes, I think so. She has trust issues now. She doesn’t want to do modelling anymore, which is really sad.

“We have gone through so many emotions – frustration and anger.

"He’s definitely a scumbag. I could say worse.”

The court heard Drabble ran the modelling agency, which he used to help promote furniture.

Sarah Hurd, prosecuting, told the court that on December 16 2017, Drabble had collected the girl from her home to go shopping for clothes before taking her to his business for a shoot.

The teenager was told to bring both a black bra and a white bra and that she would need to change her underwear to co-ordinate with the clothes she was wearing during the shoot.

But the victim became suspicious after noticing a picture of the inside of the changing room on Drabble's computer while he showed her pictures from a previous shoot.

On entering the changing room, an upstairs office in the building, she found a mobile phone hidden in a box with the camera turned on.

The girl left the changing room and contacted her mother, who told her to leave immediately.

A police investigation found footage from a previous shoot stored on Drabble's computer, which showed the girl removing her bra in the changing room.

Drabble, who had denied the charge, told the court that security cameras had been installed in the building after a break-in a few years earlier, but that no permanent camera had been installed in the changing area.

He admitted the models were not told that there was a camera in the room, but said that signs elsewhere in the building warned visitors that a CCTV system was in operation.

Drabble claimed he had put the camera in the room so that if any allegations of inappropriate behaviour were made against him, he could show the film to prove they were untrue.

"If somebody is getting changed, then I would put it there. After they have changed, then it would be removed from the room, because if there's no-one in the room, then there is nobody to protect and so it serves no purpose," he said.

He denied placing the camera to gain sexual gratification from the films, which he said he had not watched.

Delivering the guilty verdict on June 13, Chairman Jane Hinton said: "Adrian Drabble says he filmed the girl in order to protect himself from possible allegations. He said he did not record the images for sexual gratification. We are sure he took these images for the purpose of sexual gratification. Any sensible person would realise it was not a good idea to film a young woman changing.

"To suggest it was for protection is not credible. The only possible reason for him to have done this was for his own sexual gratification, otherwise he would have asked for a chaperone to accompany the girl."

Drabble, of Pencraig, Ross-on-Wye, will be sentenced early next month.

The model's mother added: "We met other girls and did a couple of shoots, there was a contract, and he was telling her, ‘oh you are one of the best ones.’

"But you think that someone who’s been in the town for that long – you don’t think that these things are going to happen.

“I hope it hasn’t happened to anyone else. And what if my daughter hadn’t found the camera? What could have happened next? I felt guilty to think we could trust someone like that."