‘Smirking’ pervert masturbated in front of woman on Leeds street

Lloyd Morris had been to the York Road probation office on April 13 and was on nearby Torre Lane when a woman noticed he was unsteady on his feet. She said he had a smirk on his face as he looked at her and had both hands down his trousers, “clearly masturbating”, she later told police.

However, the 35-year-old was already facing two counts of sexual assault at Leeds Railway Station from the evening of June 14 of last year. He approached two women in the station and began talking to them, seemingly heavily in drink and with a bottle of vodka in his pocket.

When security guards intervened, he tried to claim he knew the two women and kissed then both on the cheek before being escorted out of the building. The women said they were left shaken and suffering anxiety over the incident.

Morris denied the assaults and outraging public decency for his latest offence, but was found guilty after a trial, prosecutor Jemima Stephenson told Leeds Crown Court.

Morris, of Kingston Terrace, Woodhouse, has 48 previous convictions for 79 offences, including an attempted sexual assault from last year when he tried a grope a nurse’s breasts.

In mitigation, Jane Cooper said his crimes were not sophisticated but realised it “had to be immediate custody”.

Judge Andrew Stubbs KC jailed him for 18 months and said: “Yours is a life that is just being wasted, it is being lost to alcohol and drugs. It’s a really depressing and sad picture.

"You are unwilling to help yourself or recognise that you need help. Your sexualised behaviour is becoming more and more worrying for people who know you. You are a risk to women.”

He gave him a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) which prohibits him from entering railway stations unless he is travelling on the next available service. It also stops him making contact with any female he does not know on public transport.