A pervert who repeatedly lifted up a young girl’s skirt while she was sitting in a bank waiting for her father has been detained in hospital after being branded a danger to the public.

Connal Nicholson made a number of lewd remarks towards the girl before walking out of the bank in Redcar.

The 22-year-old was caught after the victim’s siblings raised concerns with their dad who returned to bank to alert staff and the police.

Teesside Crown Court heard how a trawl through the bank’s CCTV quickly identified the defendant and he was later arrested and charged with sexual assault and breach of a sexual harm prevention order.

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Judge Jonathan Carroll ordered that Nicholson should be detained indefinitely in a hospital before reassuringly telling the victim’s father that his actions on that day were ‘beyond reproach’.

He said: “This dad was in the bank - an ordinary and legitimate activity. It is always a challenge to juggle childcare and other duties.

“He believed, and was right to believe, that his children would be perfectly safe in the bank with CCTV and people around.

“What he had not imagined, and he cannot be criticised for, that someone like you would enter the bank in a predatory way and that is what you did – you focussed on his young daughter.

“I have seen the CCTV, it is concerning the way you look at her and watch before lifting up the clothing of the young girl – not once, not twice but on a number of occasions.”

Nicholson, of Grangetown, near Redcar, appeared in court via video link from Durham prison, was detained in Roseberry Park Hospital in Middlesbrough, under section 37 of The Mental Health Act.

Medical experts concluded that he was a danger to the public as he posed a high risk of re-offending.

Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, said Nicholson had previous convictions for sexually assaulting a young girl in a swimming pool and inciting a nine-year-old girl to send him photographs of her naked body.

In 2018, Nicholson was jailed for six-years-and-six-months, for inciting a nine-year old girl to take a photo of her private parts and send it to him.

However, David Lamb KC, told the court that Nicholson has a learning disability - making it inappropriate for him to be sent to prison and urged the judge to follow the recommendations in the pre-sentence report.

Nicholson was also ordered to sign the sex offenders' register for life. He was made the subject of a new sexual harm prevention order.

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