A builder attempted to covertly film people using a unisex toilet at the five-star hotel he was working at.

Reginaldo Lima, 46, was arrested after a cleaner found his mobile phone hidden in the toilet at the plush Royal Lancaster Hotel in central London.

Police then found other covert videos of a woman showering with her baby – not taken at the hotel – and of him performing a solo sex act.

Brazilian national Lima’s behaviour cost him his marriage and he was kicked out of his marital home in Bromley, south east London, after his crimes were exposed, magistrates were told on Friday.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of voyeurism at Westminster Magistrates Court.

Matt Barrowcliffe, prosecuting, said the offence at the five-star hotel next to Hyde Park happened on 23 October this year.

Barrowcliffe said: “Police were called to the Lancaster Hotel in Lancaster Terrace after a cleaner had found a mobile phone in the unisex toilets which had been set up to record.

“That phone belongs to the defendant, who was a contractor there at the time.

“It captures the defendant himself using the toilet. Fortunately the phone is then found within 45 minutes on that occasion.”

Police then found a young mother being covertly filmed showering with her baby in a recording on his phone.

Barrowcliffe said of that footage: “The complainant is recorded in her own home.

“The recording is made upside down, the camera appears to be set up under a sink in the bathroom.”

The 59-minute clip was taken in her bathroom on October 15, along with two other videos on his phone.

One showed him setting up the camera underneath a sink while naked and the other was of him performing a solo sex act afterwards.

The prosecutor said: “Lima sets up the camera whilst he is naked.

“He appears to move some bottles of cleaning fluid around to conceal it.”

The victim said in a statement: “This has made me feel shocked, scared for myself and I cannot believe what has happened.”

A lawyer acting for Lima said that no members of the public were recorded by the device at the hotel before it was found.

The magiatrates’ chairman, Lord Fred Ponsonby, sentenced Lima to seven months in jail, suspended for two years.

He told Lima: “You pleaded guilty on the day of your trial and I can see that you are ashamed of yourself.

“So you have now got a suspended sentence, what that means is if you commit another offence you will go to jail unless it is unjust.”

He will be on the Sex Offenders’ Register for 10 years, and must pay £500 prosecution costs as well as a £115 victim surcharge. No orders for compensation were made.

He received four months suspended jail for the offence at the hotel, and three months consecutive for the offence at the home.