An engineer from Cranberry caught spying on a teenage girl in a public bathroom in England last May was given a suspended sentence there on Thursday after pleading guilty to a charge of voyeurism.

Jason Proch, 36, a mechanical engineer at Philips Respironics in Murrysville, admitted that he slid a mirror beneath a partition from his bathroom stall to one occupied by a 14-year-old girl at a pub in the northern English city of Middlesbrough on May 17, according to U.K. media accounts.

Mr. Proch, of Hampshire Drive, was in England on business when he visited the pub near his hotel.

He had faced a jail term of nine months had he been convicted after trial, according to the Evening Gazette in Middlesbrough, but instead was given a suspended sentence that requires him to be on home detention for a week when he gets back to the United States.

The judge also banned him from female public toilets in England and Wales and ordered that he be placed on a registered sex offender list in the U.K. for the next 10 years. That registry does not apply to the U.S.

Police arrested Mr. Proch at his hotel a few minutes after the incident and said they found a small mirror and a piece of reflective plastic he had used to watch the girl.

According to U.K. news accounts, the girl realized what was happening and tried to call her friend on a cell phone but couldn't get a signal. Her worried friend then went looking for her and found her "frozen" in the cubicle, scared and trying to explain what happened.

Mr. Proch, a married father who grew up in Belle Vernon and earned degrees at Carnegie Mellon and Pitt, has no prior arrests.

The U.K. news accounts said Mr. Proch's attorney introduced a report from a specialist in Georgia who had treated him to curb his voyeurism. The report indicated Mr. Proch had spied on people for sexual gratification some 40 times over 20 years, although never before in a bathroom.

His lawyer argued that the girl did not suffer serious psychological harm, although she said she was scared of going into public toilets and was concerned about being watched, according to media reports.

When initially confronted by police, Mr. Proch denied the spying and said he had walked into the wrong bathroom by mistake, but he later admitted the crime and sought treatment.

His lawyer said his client was "appalled" at his behavior and said Mr. Proch will not return to the U.K.

"You behaved in a quite disgraceful way towards a 14-year-old girl who had done no more than go to use a toilet in a pub," the judge told him in court, according to the Northern Echo newspaper. "The effect on that girl, in my judgment, was extremely significant."

It's not clear when he will return to the U.S. He did not return a message left at his home yesterday.

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