A voyeur with a fetish for underwear is starting an indefinite jail sentence after he was caught filming teenage girls undressing.

Perverted Terrence Pittman, 44, who had a long history of secretly filming girls and stealing knickers, installed miniature cameras in the girls' bedrooms.

From hours of recordings he produced a DVD of the "edited highlights" of the girls as they got changed.

St Albans crown court heard Pittman was carrying out work in a loft of a house in Watford and made holes in the ceiling of the bedroom of two teenagers.

Patrick Field, prosecuting, said he installed two tiny cameras in the bedrooms and ran wires up to four video recorders in the loft. He was caught after one of the girls, aged 13, found the camera.

"The four video recorders in the loft were in sequence with one following another on a timer. They were set for the times when the two girls would be going to bed or getting up in the morning," said Mr Field.

Pittman was arrested on November 11 2006 by police. When they searched the home he shared with his mother they found a DVD on which he had edited the highlights of the hours of recording.

It included images of three teenage girls.

Mr Field said Pittman had also hidden in bushes and filmed children in a playground.

One girl said what had happened made her "feel dirty". Another said she "felt upset and angry and was scared and anxious".

As a result of his arrest Pittman, who was on licence having been released after serving two-thirds of a 10 year sentence for arson, was returned to prison.

Pittman, of Leggatts Way, Watford, pleaded guilty to voyeurism and three charges of making indecent images of children.

He had been sentenced to 10 years after using sophisticated miniature cameras to spy on girls in three schools in Hertfordshire in 1997.

He had also broken into schools and stolen video tapes and still photographs which showed girls dancing, at gym displays or at sports days.

To cover his tracks he had started fires at two schools which caused £130,000 worth of damage.

He broke into other schools and installed covert cameras in girls' changing rooms.

In January 1991 he had broken a window at a church to look into a room where Brownies were changing. He had other convictions dating back to 1980 for the theft of knickers and entering houses to steal underwear.

Defence barrister Richard Cross said Pittman suffered from Asperger's Syndrome.

He said it had been a mistake for Pittman to have been released after serving two thirds of the 10 year sentence without having supervision. "Nobody has ever got to grip with his Asperger's. He has never been given the right treatment," he said.

Sentencing him Judge John Plumstead told him: "You spied on these girls to gain sexual gratification. They were entitled to have absolute privacy."

The judge said there was a very high risk of further offending and he said he regarded Pittman as a danger to the public. He passed an indeterminate sentence for public protection.

This means he will not be released from jail until the parole board think it is safe to do so. Once he is freed Pittman will be on licence so that he is monitored by probation officers for 10 years.