A man with a foot fetish who lured women into his car then secretly filmed them has escaped prosecution because of a legal loophole.

Police discovered that Raymond Rowland, 41, had taken pictures of the legs and feet of more than 100 unsuspecting women after claiming that his car had broken down.

He asked the women to sit in the driver’s seat and rev the engine while he tinkered under the bonnet. The women were unaware that he had concealed a camcorder in the footwell.

On Thursday magistrates imposed an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO), which bans Rowland from approaching or taking photographs of women without their consent for the next ten years.

The court in Totnes, Devon, was told that police had wanted to bring charges against Rowland but because he was taking the photographs in a “public place” he was technically committing no offence.

Rowland approached the women in supermarket car parks across Devon between 2003 and 2006.

Peter Quinn, for the prosecution, said that he was caught when he asked the same woman to help him for the second time in a week.

“Very few women in question had the faintest idea what he was doing. If they knew they were being filmed they would have been more than upset, to put it mildly,” he said. “He approached one woman and asked her to sit in the car and press the accelerator. But she remembered helping him just the week before.

“When she refused he said, ‘Some people have a disgusting attitude’, and drove off. It was then that she realised it was subterfuge. “Mr Rowland admitted that he targeted females and filmed them in his car to get sexual gratification by looking at their legs and feet.

“He filmed them in a manner that was covert and surreptitious. It was most certainly antisocial.”

Police raided his home in Torquay, Devon, and found six video tapes he had made of the legs and feet of women he had lured into his car.

When Rowland was interviewed by police after his arrest on December 22, 2006, he said: “The bottom line is no one is hurt or dying. I’m doing something totally innocent.”

After the hearing a spokesman for Devon and Cornwall police confirmed that, legally speaking, Rowland was correct.

The spokesman said: “Rowland was initially arrested on suspicion of voyeurism but it was not possible to charge him with this offence.

“The voyeurism offence must take place in a private place, such as a changing room or a toilet cubicle. A car in a car park does not constitute an offence under this legislation.”

Voyeurism is a criminal offence under section 67 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 only if the victim is “is in a place which, in the circumstances, would reasonably be expected to provide privacy”. Police used civil powers to apply for the ASBO.

Detective Constable Tom Norrish, of Torquay police, said that the loophole in the law was very frustrating.

He said: “A lot of police hours have gone into this case. Every one of my colleagues at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) felt this was a criminal offence but were unable to charge him.

“But I wasn’t happy to leave it and achieving an ASBO was the best outcome we could hope for, which will probably address the problem. The police are now working with the CPS to address the loophole.”

Jolyon Tuck, defending Rowland, said that his client had apologised and accepted that his actions were untoward.

He said: “When he was arrested he realised his actions probably weren’t right. It was a pattern of behaviour he decided to cease from that day and he says he has not done anything of the sort since then.

“He says he’s not going to do it again but accepts the reasons for the ASBO and will work within the terms of it.”

Council officials are putting posters in car parks across the county, warning women what Rowland has been doing. If he breaks the terms of his ASBO, he can be jailed for up to six months and fined up to £5,000.

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