A Gloucestershire police officer accused of trying to film a naked female colleague as she showered at their Quedgeley headquarters told a jury today that he was only in his cubicle to sort his hair.

At Newport Crown Court on Monday, prosecutor Matthew Roberts told the jury that while she was drying off, a woman noticed a phone being held underneath the partition of her cubicle in the unisex changing rooms of Gloucestershire Constabulary’s gym in Waterwells.

PC Jonathan Eaton, 32, of Brockworth, Gloucester, denied any wrongdoing and told the jury today, Thursday, that he had picked up his phone, which he been placed on the floor, with the camera lens facing the tiles.

“I haven’t done anything wrong. I have never been accused of anything before. It was a lifelong dream to become a policeman,” said Eaton.

Eaton said he went into the cubicle fully clothed to use the showers to stick his hair down – a double crown that he was "precious" about – and placed his phone on the floor before kneeling down to use the shower head.

“As far as I was concerned the camera mode was not operational. The phone’s camera lens would have been facing the floor if it was in camera mode and facing the ceiling if it was in selfie mode. If it was being used to record the image would have been visible on the screen,” he said.

“I didn’t know who was in the adjacent cubicle. I then picked up my phone and left.”

“As I was walking away I heard a woman shout ‘oi’ but I didn’t think it was aimed at me and I carried on retrieving my possessions when the same woman shouted, ‘stop that policeman’.

“I then spoke to a woman in a towel at the opposite end of the changing room. She questioned me about whether I had been filming her and demanded to see my phone.

“She didn’t look at it properly before walking away. I could tell she was distressed. I was a bit shocked at what had just happened.”

The jury was told that Mr Eaton became increasingly upset by the accusations and reported to his supervisor that he was going home as he was feeling unwell.

The prosecutor told the jury of seven men and five women that a subsequent investigation had revealed that within 40 minutes of Eaton returning home, his phone was reset to factory settings.

Mr Eaton said: “When I got home I decided to sort my phone out as it was being very sluggish.

“I assumed that having bought additional storage my phone would automatically be backed up. I decided that the only option was to factory reset my phone, which is what I did.

He said he then contacted the Gloucestershire Police Federation for advice who told him to return, whereupon he was arrested before being released under investigation without charge.

Mr Eaton has denied a voyeurism charge of attempting to observe and attempting to record for sexual gratification a person involved in a private act without consent on February 27, 2019.