Police swooped on a mobile phone shop after a male worker was caught scrolling through a female customer’s intimate selfies.
Louise Johnson, 28, took her iPhone 11 to be fixed after the screen and battery were smashed after she dropped it on the floor.
She agreed to pay £85 for the phone to be fixed at The Mobile Doctor in Worcester on Saturday 13 November.
But when she collected it, she caught a male worker leering at intimate pictures of her in underwear and bikinis which she had taken for her boyfriend.
Police confirmed the man had looked at her picture for 15 minutes but could not help Louise further because he had not downloaded or shared the snaps.
Louise said she grabbed the phone but claims the man snatched it back, scratching her hand.
She said: ‘As soon as I walked in, I saw him lock my phone and put it to the side, but I saw my wallpaper, so I knew it was mine.
‘I asked whether my phone was ready, and he told me it would be another hour because someone had to come and finish repairing the frame.
‘But I knew he’d been on my phone, so I asked for it back, swiped up to see my most recent tabs and saw that he was looking through all my photographs from years ago.
‘Some of them were personal to me.
‘There were pictures of me in bikinis and in underwear which were quite intimate. They were pictures I had sent to a boyfriend and no one else.
‘I could see that he’d been looking at them.
‘I felt disgusted and was in total shock, I could not believe what was happening.
‘I snatched the phone off the counter but he grabbed my arm and scratched me really hard.
‘I felt completely violated. It’s creepy and perverted to go through someone else’s most private pictures without their permission.’
When Louise demanded her phone back, she claims the man refused to hand it over unless she coughed up £85 for the repair.
She called police who attended the shop and says they confirmed that CCTV showed the man looking through her phone for 15 minutes.
But officers were powerless to act because the man had not downloaded or shared the images, therefore no law was broken.
Louise, a marketing manager from London who was visiting friends in Worcester, added: “When I asked the police for the man’s name they refused claiming it was because of GDPR.
“I almost fell over in shock. Basically a strange man can rifle through my private pictures without permission but his identity is protected because of data protection? How is that right?”
A spokesperson for The Mobile Doctor said: “We have resolved the issue in the presence of police.”