Peter Jackson: Upskirter targeted women at National Art School Darlinghurst

An eastern suburbs man was pulled over due to his driving. However, it was what cops found on the digital camera in his car that landed him in court.

Peter Jackson has pleaded guilty. Picture: Christian Gilles

A repeat up-skirting pest has narrowly avoided being sent to prison after police found alarming videos on his camera during a routine traffic stop.

Peter Jackson, 64, from Bardwell Valley, was sentenced on Thursday (May 27) for taking about 45 minutes of footage at an art show in Darlinghurst in March 2020 which involved his trying to record up women’s skirts and clothing.

The sick footage was taken inside the National Art School in Darlinghurst and was uncovered by police during a routine traffic stop a couple of weeks later.

Peter Jackson after being released on bail last year. Picture: Christian Gilles

A court heard police searched through his Panasonic 4k camera during the traffic stop as Jackson had been convicted for another upskirting-style offence in 2019, which related to his filming a 12-year-old girl through a fence in Turrella.

Jackson was supported by his lawyer in Waverley Local Court on Thursday where he was slammed for his behavior.

Magistrate Ross Hudson told Jackson that his offending was an “enormous breach” of the unwritten social contract that every person had within the community.

He said everyone had the right to feel safe in public and not to have their privacy invaded and violated like Jackson attempted to do.

Jackson, who was diagnosed with Autism later in life, was convicted and sentenced to a community correction order with supervision for 30 months and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service work for the charge of attempt to film person's private parts without consent. He previously pleaded guilty to the charge.

He appeared in Waverley Local Court on Thursday.

He was also resentenced for the January 2019 offence involving the 12-year-old girl, for breaching his original orders, and was sentenced to a further community correction order.

Magistrate Hudson warned Jackson he would go to jail if he was to come before a court again for another similar offence. He added the work he had done to rehabilitate himself had largely stopped him going to jail on this occasion.

Jackson’s lawyer earlier told the court that Jackson did not actually obtain footage of any private parts of women inside the National Art School in March 2020, and the charge only related to his attempting to do so.