A CARLISLE resident who took matters into his own hands because he objected to his neighbours’ CCTV cameras has admitted damaging them.

David Wiseman, 35, who told magistrates at the city’s Rickergate court he had been coping with mental health issues, was filmed as he reached up and tried to point three of the cameras towards the ground, breaking their plastic brackets.

He admitted a single charge of causing criminal damage.

Pam Ward, prosecuting, outlined how at 8.15pm on July 27 the woman who lives at the ground floor flat in Margaret Creighton Gardens was preparing supper in the kitchen when she glanced out of the window.

The prosecutor said: “She shouted to her partner in the front room: ‘They’ve just pulled the cameras off the wall.”

When her partner went outside, he found two cameras pointing downwards.

Their cameras’ plastic brackets had been damaged so that they were no longer able to point in any direction but downwards, said Mrs Ward.

The woman’s partner noticed a man outside with a balding head.

When he saw the householder emerged from the flat, he offered to fight him, the court heard. The cameras’ owners said the cost of the damage was £70.

When the couple reviewed the CCTV footage from the incident, the recording showed Wiseman walking up to the camera and reaching out to it. The last thing they saw was his hand going over the lens before the footage cut out.

Mrs Ward summarised what the defendant had told police when questioned.

“He admitted he caused the damage and said he pulled the cameras down, saying that they shouldn’t be recording people," said Mrs Ward.

“He said he’d pulled them down so that they pointed at the floor and he didn’t think he’d caused any damage.” The court heard that the defendant was last in trouble in 2017 for breaching a restraining order.

Wiseman, representing himself, told magistrates he agreed with “90 per cent” of the prosecutor’s outline.

He said: “I didn’t offer them out for a fight when they came outside. I felt like I was being watched.

“There was no intention to break the cameras.

“I just felt uncomfortable being watched constantly. I have mental health. They have maybe eight cameras on their property, watching other people. I was sitting outside the front of my friend’s property and they could see me where I was sitting.”

Wiseman said that he had changed his life a lot recently, having once been an alcoholic. “I went to rehab and have kept out of trouble for a long time,” he said, adding: “It was just an error on my part. I’ve complained [to Riverside Housing] several times and I should have kept on complaining.”

Magistrates noted Wiseman’s remorse, saying they hoped he had learned a lesson to not take matters into his own hands. He was fined £40, with £85 costs and a £34 victim surcharge.

He must pay compensation of £70 to the owners of the cameras.