'She saw bright blue eyes staring back at her': Northampton toilet voyeur jailed AGAIN for spying on women and children at Sixfields' McDonalds

A perpetual Northampton sex offender who has repeatedly been set free from jail only to wander into female toilets and spy on more women has been sent to prison yet again.

Christopher Rufford, 38, formerly of Lower Meadow Court, Thorplands, was jailed for three years today (July 23) after he was caught peering through a gap he created in the women's toilets at McDonald's in Sixfields.

CCTV later showed that the day he was caught - October 4, 2019 - was, in fact, his third day in a row where he had entered the female toilets for more than 40 minutes at a time, during which time countless women and children would have used the facilities.

Northampton Crown Court heard today how, in a frightening incident in October last year, a woman described entering the female toilets and noticed "a rancid smell of body odour and sweat".

Prosecutor Raglan Ashton told the court: "She noted then a girl around the age of 10 years old exiting one of the cubicles, and shortly after that a mother with a five-year-old boy exiting the other.

"We now know Rufford would have been in the cubicle next to them at that time.

"He had stuffed serviettes in the gaps where the cubicle joins the wall. This allowed him to view the central cubicle from where he was positioned.

"The woman looked at the gap - and to her surprise she saw what she described as bright blue eyes staring back at her."

The court heard the woman believes she also saw the light of a mobile phone that made her feel she was being filmed - but the court produced no evidence that Rufford had recorded anyone during his spree.

The woman alerted staff at the McDonald's, but Rufford left the restaurant and cycled away.

But CCTV later revealed the date in October had only been the third day that week Rufford had been spying on women in those toilets. On two other dates, he also entered the toilets for more than 40 minutes at a time.

Mr Ashton told the court: "On one occasion, he was seen entering the toilets directly behind a girl of around 10 years old."

However, this is only the latest in Rufford's lifelong history of voyeurism that has earned him an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) restricting him from loitering or entering female toilets and changing areas.

But he had broken this order at every turn, and seemingly every time he has been released from jail he has offended again.

In November 2019, he was jailed for 16 months for an incident in January 2019 where he entered the women's toilets at McDonalds in Weston Favell.

This itself was committed just days after leaving prison after he was jailed in January 2017 for spying on a woman at the same McDonalds in November - which itself was five weeks after he was released from prison on licence in October for similar offences in 2016.

He received a community order in September 2015 for voyeurism, followed by a 16-month prison sentence a month later in October 2015 for breaching his SHPO.

This is in addition to convictions for a total of eight counts of voyeurism between 2006 and 2008.

All told, between 2006 and present day, Rufford has now been convicted over 30 times for either breaching his SHPO or committing acts of voyeurism in women's toilets.

Judge Rebecca Crane told Rufford in sentencing for these most recent offences: "There would have been a constant stream of females and children using those facilities while you were in there.

"Your basis of a guilty plea is on that no films or photos were taken.

"You pose a very high-risk of harm to females and children. You choose to seek sexual gratification by committing these offences.

"This can only be met with an immediate custodial sentence."

Rufford was jailed once again for three years. His Sexual Harm Prevention Order is in place until at least 2047.