Persistent bus pervert jailed for NINTH time

Neil Poundford, 62, was handed a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) in 2017 for sexually assaulting a female on a bus, and has now breached the order 16 times in total.

He was handed a new 12-month sentence today after being caught on public buses bound for Normanton earlier this month, just days after leaving jail for his previous breaches.

This is the ninth time he has been jailed for disobeying the order.

Leeds Crown Court was told that Poundford was caught on CCTV getting on the 189 service at Whitwood Common Lane in Castleford at 7.20am on October 5, before getting off in Normanton.

The following day he was seen by police getting on the 189 service at Kirkgate in Wakefield and again got off in Normanton.

He was arrested and told officers "you've got me again".

While at the police station he was seen to screw up a bit of paper and flick it away, which turned out to be the bus ticket from Normanton to Wakefield earlier that day.

He admitted three breaches of his SHPO during a hearing at Leeds Magistrates' Court and held on remand at HMP Leeds until he was sentenced this morning.

Appearing on remand via video link from HMP Leeds for his latest breaches, Poundford was, as usual, not represented by a barrister.

He told the court: "At no time on the bus was I threat to any woman or female. I sit quietly on my own and look out of the window until it's my stop.

"I do not to speak to anybody."

However, he admitted he was "in the wrong".

As part of the SHPO, he is only permitted on public transport if accompanied by a responsible adult.

He said that he had put forward several names of adults that could accompany him, but they had all been rejected by the authorities because they all had criminal records.

Poundford, of no fixed address, was first given the SHPO when he was jailed for 16 months in August 2017 for two offences of sexual assault.

He touched a 17-year-old’s face and arm on a bus between Wakefield and Dewsbury, then preyed on a 13-year-old girl at a bus stop in Horbury, two months later, touching her face and knee.