Pervert Rushden builder who flashed at elderly women jailed again

A perverted builder from Rushden who previously flashed at elderly women he was working for has been put behind bars again.

Nicholas Jones was deemed such a risk that he was banned from carrying out work which would bring him into contact with people who are elderly or vulnerable, without prior permission.

He had exposed himself to a number of people at their houses, in some cases performing a disgusting sex act in front of them.

Years later he was jailed for exposing himself and sexually assaulting a woman who had told him to stop.

And now he's staring at the four walls of a prison cell once more after he was caught working at the homes of two people, breaching a court order.

Today (Friday) Northampton Crown Court heard Jones, of Kilburn Place, had the ban placed on him in 2014 after he was convicted of 10 counts of indecent exposure.

Prosecuting, Lucia Harrington said he was not allowed to undertake work likely to bring him into contact with elderly or vulnerable people, or take any employment in anyone's house, unless he had permission from a protection officer.

But last year a woman contacted police, concerned that her grandmother had a known sex offender working in her garden. Jones had been doing work on her patio and roof.

He had made strange cooing noises over the phone and touched her cheek in the garden for longer than she felt comfortable. She was aware of his criminal past.

Jones breached the order again when he did some work for a male pensioner, fixing his fence.

When he was arrested and interviewed by police he denied breaching the order and gave no comment answers. He later admitted three charges of breaching a sexual harm prevention order and two charges of failing to comply with sex offender notification requirements, which related to bank cards he had not told police about.

The court heard that the last time he was in the dock was in 2017, when he was jailed for 22 months.

He had been working at a woman's house and asked her for a drink after going inside.

She turned around and found him sitting on her sofa performing a sex act and, when she told him to stop, he walked out and said: "I was enjoying that." He later returned to the property and sexually assaulted her.

Mitigating, Paul Webb said Jones had worked as a builder since he was 16 but that the "onerous" restrictions have made it extremely difficult for him to ply his trade.

He said Jones cared for his elderly parents, didn't want to rely on benefits and thought he wasn't breaching the court order but was now in "no doubt" of the conditions.

He urged Recorder James House QC to consider a suspended sentence or as short a sentence as possible.

He said: "He is a man who wants to get back to work."

But Jones was jailed for a total of 16 months and told he would spend up to half in custody before being released on licence.

Recorder House QC told him: "You must learn that if you continue to breach the terms of the order there will be only one outcome, and that's custody."