After committing a “brazen and persistent” sexual assault on a woman on a train, a man was sentenced to prison.
When 50-year-old Edgar Junior boarded the Elizabeth Line at Paddington, he started harassing other passengers with sexual comments and assaulting a single female passenger.
This carried on until he disembarked the train in Reading, a trip that takes about 50 minutes.
However, on March 28 of last year, British Transport Police were made aware of his acts, and Junior was taken into custody shortly after getting off the train.
The moment he was arrested and spat in a police officer’s face was caught on bodyworn camera footage.
Junior assaulted the woman after getting off the train and then continued to make sexual statements and gestures, despite a fellow male passenger begging him to leave the woman alone.
When the victim got off the train, another woman sat with her, but Junior kept approaching other ladies and harassing them.
At Reading Crown Court, Junior, of Barnsdale Road in Reading, entered a guilty plea to sexual assault and was given a 20-month prison term and a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
The order forbids him from drinking in public and from giving unwelcome attention to ladies and girls.
“Junior is a disturbing person who subjected a woman to a brazen and persistent sexual assault while she was travelling on a train alone,” said Detective Inspector Marvin Bruno. “The custodial sentence he’s been handed shows just how seriously these offences are taken.”
“I am grateful to the onlookers who saw his disgusting actions, intervened to aid, and quickly reported it to police, allowing our officers to then board the train and apprehend him.
I can’t stress enough how crucial it is to store our text number, 61016, in your phone.
“If you ever see or encounter behaviour like this, you can text us in confidence. The message will reach our control room in real time, and they can send officers to a location if necessary.
We’ll always consider you serious.