A DRIVING instructor who hid a carrot down his trousers is facing prison after being found found guilty of a string of sex attacks on pupils.

Stephen Cooney denied three sexual assaults and two indecent assaults on three different learner drivers in his car dating back five years.

The 51-year-old was found guilty of the two indecent assaults on a teenager and a middle-aged woman and two of the sexual assaults on a young mum.

The jury of seven men and five women at Teesside Crown Court convicted him of the attacks this evening after deliberating for five hours.

Judge George Moorhouse adjourned sentencing until next month so background reports can be prepared by probation officials.

Cooney committed the first attack on an 18-year-old after a lesson in September 2002 when he groped the teenager's breast.

The following year, he forced the hand of a student in her 40s onto his groin to touch a pretend erection - the 12in carrot in his trousers.

A third pupil, the mum in her 20s, was groped two times during lessons between August 2005 and February last year.

By this time, Cooney had set up his own company - Steve's School of Motoring - having previously worked for franchise firm.

His final victim claimed he offered to waive £80 she owed for lessons in return for sex in a lay-by as they returned from Whitby, North Yorkshire.

She also said she had been shown nude pictures of Cooney which he produced from the glovebox of his driving school car.

When police arrested Cooney at his home in Ronaldshay Terrace, Marske, east Cleveland, they found a new batch of naked pictures.

Hidden in the glovebox of his Vauxhall Coras were 14 shots - including close-ups of Cooney's penis - taken with a new digital camera.

Cooney told the jury that his partner had bought him the gadget for his 50th birthday and he was testing out the zoom capabilities.

He said he planned to destroy the photos, denied he would have shown them to pupils, and claimed he put them in his car so his partner did not see them.

Cooney will return to Teesside Crown Court on December 7 to be sentenced.

After the case, one of his victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: "I'm just so relieved and so pleased the jury believed what we had to say."