Lawyer may face voyeurism retrial

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A lawyer who admitted filming a girl in a cubicle at a Belfast leisure centre but had a voyeurism charge against him dropped could face a retrial.

At the trial, Magistrate Fiona Bagnall said she was satisfied Ritchie Shaw MacRitchie, 31, had recorded the act for sexual gratification.

However, she said she was dismissing the charge because the girl had not been filmed carrying out a private act.

The Public Prosecution Service is to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.

A PPS spokesman said they had asked the magistrate to explain her decision to the Court of Appeal.

Legal grounds

Her case will relate to the legal grounds on which she based her decision not to convict.

It is understood that Mr MacRitchie and his legal advisers have been informed of the intention to appeal his acquittal.

Mr MacRitchie, from Omeath, County Louth, was accused of using his phone to film the 17-year-old in a unisex changing room at the Falls Leisure Centre last October.

However, earlier this month, the magistrate said that as the young woman had been wearing her swimsuit, rather than being naked, or in her underwear, the voyeurism charge could not stand.

As a result she said she had no alternative but to accede to a defence application to dismiss the voyeurism charge.