A father-of-two who prowled north London streets in a balaclava, filming women through their bedroom windows in the dead of night, has pleaded guilty to 26 voyeurism charges – after doorbell camera footage caught him red-handed.
Anthony Durkan, 36, from Islington, admitted 19 new counts of voyeurism at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, adding to seven similar offences he had already confessed to in March. The guilty pleas cover a campaign of spying that stretched from January 2020 to March 2026, with police uncovering a hidden gallery on his phone containing “hundreds of images and videos of women in various states of undress”.
“Anthony Durkan pleaded guilty to 26 voyeurism charges after doorbell footage caught him filming women through windows.”
The case unravelled in January 2026 when a woman alerted officers after her neighbour spotted a man “dressed entirely in black and wearing a balaclava” outside her Islington home in the early hours. The neighbour’s Ring doorbell captured the intruder holding his mobile phone up to the windows, apparently filming inside, before he walked away.
Just weeks later, another woman reported seeing a man recording her through her window. When she confronted him, he fled – but again a neighbour’s doorbell footage placed him at the scene. Police increased patrols, and officers in an unmarked car eventually spotted Durkan outside another property. A search of his phone revealed the vast collection of covert recordings, with no indication the victims knew they were being filmed.
Detective Chief Inspector Gemma Alger said Durkan’s offending represented “a serious and sustained course of predatory behaviour, deliberately targeting women who were entirely unaware they were being filmed, without their consent and in the privacy of their own homes”. She thanked the victims for their courage and said swift investigative work enabled officers to arrest him during a proactive patrol.
Prosecutor Edward Kalber told the court Durkan “poses a real risk to women and girls in our communities”, adding that he was “filming them in their private residences in various states of undress”. Police believe there may be more victims and have urged any woman in north London who noticed “unusual activity around their home, especially late at night or in the early hours” between 2020 and 2026 to come forward.
Durkan will be sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court at a later date.
