Bailed sex offender targeted schoolgirl and nurse at Wharfedale stations

George McKenzie, 42, was on bail accused of indecently assaulting a 14-year-old at Ilkley railway station last December when three months later he groped a woman in her 50s as she was waiting for a bus in Otley.

Bradford Crown Court was told that in 1999 McKenzie was jailed for four years at Leeds Crown Court for similar offences involving a schoolgirl and three women.

Jailing him yesterday for a total of 16 months Judge John Potter told McKenzie the latest offences showed his wish to target vulnerable women in bus and trains stations.

McKenzie, of Leeds Road, Ilkley, was found guilty by magistrates on the first sexual assault and admitted the second and was committed for sentence.

The court heard last December the alcoholic sat on a bench next to the schoolgirl as she waited for a train to Leeds and told her she had a beautiful smile before he put his hand on her knee and tried to hug her.

Judge Potter said McKenzie effectively trapped her on the bench. “So frightened and distressed was this 14-year-old by what you were doing that she mouthed for help to others standing on the platform.”

Another woman intervened by pretending to know the girl. Staff were alerted and a train conductor used his mobile phone to photograph McKenzie before police arrived to arrest him.

McKenzie denied the offence and was on bail in March when he touched a nurse’s bottom and lower back at Otley bus station.

He also stroked her left breast over her clothing and tried to move her hand towards his groin area.

The woman managed to get on a bus, but as she left he asked: “Aren’t you going to give me a kiss bye bye? I really want you to come to bed with me. We could have good fun.”

McKenzie was identified from CCTV footage and admitted that offence.