A GRANDFATHER who masturbated in front of a podiatrist while she treated his verrucas and cut his toenails must register as a sex offender.

John Homer, of Tisbury Road, Fovant, was spared jail at Winchester Crown Court on Thursday, where he was handed a 12-month community order and told to sign the sex offenders' register.

The 58year-old previously denied indecent exposure, but admitted pleasuring himself during a foot health appointment last year.

But following a trial at Salisbury magistrates' court in April, magistrate Richard Trahair found Homer guilty, adding: "We accept beyond reasonable doubt that you did expose yourself".

The court heard that at the time of the offence Homer had been subject to a suspended sentence order dating back to 2016, after he harassed his ex-wife’s new partner including threatening to “put him in a wheelchair”, banging on his windows and taking a pickaxe to his house.

He was jailed for four weeks prior to his sentencing last week.

In April, the court heard that Homer asked the woman treating his feet, who cannot be named for legal reasons: “Do you mind if I masturbate?”, before putting both hands down his tracksuit bottoms.

Prosecuting, James Burnham, said the woman “did her best to avoid looking at that particular part of his body”, adding: “ I think she was trying to complete what she was doing and get out of the place as soon as she could.”

Giving evidence, the victim said she was “shocked and scared”, and said that at one point she looked up and saw Homer’s erect penis.

When asked why she carried on with her work, she said: “I wanted to keep everything normal, because you don’t know what else is going to happen do you? I didn’t know whether the doors were locked. I was scared.”

But Andrew Watts-Jones, appointed to question the victim on behalf of the court, said: “Your sight of his penis was extremely momentary, a fleeting particle of a second.”

He said the woman had “made a mistake”, adding: “I’m suggesting that you can’t be sure that it was really his penis, and not his thumb.”

The woman said this was “not possible”, and that it was definitely not his thumb.

During a police interview days after the incident, Homer said the woman “didn’t seem shocked at the time”, but he could understand it “probably made her uncomfortable”.

He later sent the woman a text apologising for his “bad behaviour,” adding: “It was very rude of me.”

And the court heard that he asked her to “give him a hand”, but that he would not have let her if she agreed because he had a “nasty scab” on his penis.

“I did masturbate but never exposed myself once,” he said: “I swear on my grandkids’ lives.”

But magistrate Richard Trahair found Homer, a self-employed builder, guilty of exposing himself with the intention to cause alarm or distress.

Giving his verdict, Mr Trahair said: “[The victim], a married woman with children, would not have confused a thumb for a penis.”