A British Airways pilot ‘secretly’ filmed a member of cabin crew during sex and sent videos to another BA pilot, a court has heard.

Tim Capron had met the BA crew member after matching with her on Tinder, jurors were told.

On their second date, the 38-year-old had asked her to wear a blindfold and then filmed her performing a sexual act and WhatsApped two videos to his friend from pilot school.

Jane Davies, prosecuting, said the complainant, who cannot be identified to protect her anonymity, was not aware she was being recorded and never consented to the filming.

‘At the time we are talking about, 2021, the defendant was a British Airways pilot. The complainant was a member of British Airways crew. They engaged in consensual sexual activity on an occasion in September 2021.

‘During that activity, the defendant filmed part of that on his mobile phone. That filming was without the complainant’s consent.’

Ms Davies told how Capron and the complainant had not worked together and did not know each other before they matched on the dating app Tinder in August 2021.

The prosecutor told how they met in person for the first time on September 6, 2021, when they went to a pub near the defendant’s home and then went back to the defendant’s house.

After exchanging messages, they met again four days later, when the complainant went to Capron’s house, Reading Crown Court heard.

‘When she arrived on that occasion, the defendant had been messaging his friend, Steven Farnworth,’ Ms Davies told jurors. ‘He told the complainant he had told Steve about her and that he was a friend of his from his pilot training days.’

The jury heard how Capron and the complainant then engaged in sexual activity, during which Capron had ‘requested’ she put on a blindfold.

Ms Davies said: ‘The complainant, now blindfolded, could not see what the defendant was doing, but she heard a noise which sounded like a mobile phone being placed on a wooden surface.

‘The blindfold shifted a little and she then saw a blue light coming from the defendant’s mobile phone. That mobile phone was in fact on the bedside table. She could see on the screen that two videos had been sent on a WhatsApp application.

‘She was furious that the defendant might have recorded that private sexual act. She immediately removed the blindfold and challenged the defendant about the videos. She asked what they were, made it clear she had not consented to being filmed.

‘His explanation was his friend Steve was asking him what he was doing,’ Ms Davies told jurors, adding the defendant had apologised and agreed to delete the videos.

Capron is also alleged to have said: ‘I’m glad you caught me because I should not have done it.’

A pizza which they had ordered arrived and the complainant remained at the property for a while, sitting on the sofa with the defendant and watching TV.

The defendant attempted to initiate further sexual activity but the complainant ‘made clear she did not want to do so’ and left, the court heard.

On her way home, the complained contacted a friend, Ms Davies stating she was ‘upset and shaken by the incident and did not know what to do’.

She later texted Capron, asking him to show her evidence the videos had been deleted, which he responded to by sending her a screenshot of his photos application on his phone.

Capron was arrested on September 28, 2021 and interviewed at Loddon Valley police station, when he gave a no-comment interview.

He later was interviewed again in March 2022 and provided a prepared statement and was interviewed again in November that year and January 2023.

The court heard the issue in the case was whether Capron, of Taplow, Maidenhead, knew that the complainant did not consent to to the recording. He denies one count of voyeurism.

Ms Davies asked jurors to consider why Capron had blindfolded the complainant and why he had waited until she was blindfolded to produce his mobile phone and start recording.

‘Why members of the jury did the defendant choose to do it secretly without mentioning it, without asking, without checking whether she wanted or minded being recorded during that private act?’, the prosecutor asked. 

Giving evidence in court, the complainant said: ‘Everything just kind of stopped all of a sudden. I cannot explain, something did not feel right, it just stopped and then it continued a little, but then the blindfold had come up a little bit and then I saw the light of a phone on a bedside table that was next to me.

‘I kind of had this gut instinct about what had happened and it just didn’t sit right with me,’ she said through tears.

The complainant said she later discovered the flirty messages she had exchanged with Capron on Tinder before they first met had all been deleted ‘from his side’.

Recovered Tinder messages from the conversation, which began in August 2021, show Capron discussed ‘consensual rape’.

A message sent by Capron to the complainant from August 24, 2021 said: ‘Hmmm, darkest desire? Do you love consensual rape, that sort of thing?’

The complainant said that message made her feel ‘uneasy’, adding: ‘Rape is never consensual.’

She said further messages between the two started to ‘intensify and get quite sexual’, with her joking with him about her being tied up and stating that was ‘fine by me’.

The complainant added that she had never discussed anything remotely connected to pictures or videos or films.

She said she had never sent Capron any explicit photographs of herself, stating: ‘I do not feel comfortable sending pictures of myself to anyone. I am not gonna do that.’

The trial continues.