A PERVERT who preyed on lone female passengers is behind bars and is banned from travelling in buses for the rest of his life.

Javad Montakhab is already serving a six-year prison sentence for a series of sexual assaults on public transport in 2014.

Montakhab - branded a "menace" by a judge - has a string of previous convictions for identical offending going back a decade.

The 65-year-old targeted women travelling alone, sat next to them, "wedged" them in and groped them, a court heard yesterday.

Often, he would have an empty lap-top bag on his knee to hide his hand moving towards their legs and private parts.

Prosecutor Shaun Dodds told Teesside Crown Court there was "significant planning" and Montakhab's victims were left traumatised.

One was a 24-year-old travelling home from work in Middlesbrough who froze for half-an-hour when he began stroking her leg.

An hour later, he struck again when a 45-year-old got on the bus he was on, and he moved seats to sit next to her, said Mr Dodds.

He said: "You don't mind me sitting here, do you?" before "wedging" her against a window and pressing his leg against hers.

After about ten minutes, he passed the frightened woman his mobile phone and said: "Put your number in there so we can talk."

The court heard that Montakhab was jailed for five-and-a-half years in May for a similar offence against an 18-year-old.

On Tuesday, November 24, Judge Peter Armstrong added six months to the prison sentence after he admitted two fresh charges of sexual assault.

Montakhab, of Cobden Street, Thornaby, near Stockton, appeared via a live video-link from HMP Northumberland, near Morpeth.

His lawyer, Andrew Coleman, said: "His greatest mitigation is his guilty pleas and the good sense not to drag this on.

"These offences all happened around the same time, but for whatever reason he was not charged until after he had been sentenced.

"He is waiting to get on a sex offender treatment programme for the first time, and he will get the benefit of that."

One victim told how she saw Montakhab outside her place of work the day after he had assaulted her, and she panicked.

Another said she saw him on her bus on another occasion and "my heart literally stopped - I was so frightened I couldn't move."

Judge Armstrong told him: "You deliberately sat next to each lady on a bus and touched their leg. They were terrified at that.

"They were in a position where they were hemmed in and were unable to do anything about it, and froze at your actions."