A man sexually molested a woman tourist in a mobility scooter in a major shopping street, York Crown Court heard.

Joel Tobego Motsepe, 28, also tried to kiss a dog being held in the arms of the woman’s daughter while holding his own arm round the child, said Michael Greenhalgh, prosecuting.

Within minutes, he sexually assaulted a second woman in a nearby shopping centre and approached two other women.

When he committed the offences, he was on a community order for kissing a woman train guard when she tried to check his ticket.

“You need to respect the other sex,” the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, told Motsepe as he jailed him for 12 months.

He also made a five-year sexual harm prevention order banning Motsepe from approaching any woman on her own or accompanied only by children.

Motsepe will be on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

Motsepe, of Royal Avenue, Scarborough, pleaded guilty to two sexual assaults.

For Motsepe, Nick Peacock said they were “odd offences”.

“It is purely drink,” he said. “He recognises that. He goes through long periods of abstinence, falls off the wagon and goes out and does silly things like this. “

Mr Greenhalgh said the tourist was visiting Scarborough with her family and two dogs.

While her partner was in a shop in Westborough, Motsepe came up to her and her two children.

He leant over her and sexually assaulted her as she sat in the mobility scooter.

She told police later the incident “made her feel disgusted and physically sick,” said the prosecution barrister.

The second woman was sexually assaulted in the nearby Brunswick Shopping Centre.

As Motsepe grabbed her hand and pulled her towards him, he told her: “You are …… beautiful, so beautiful.”

Her daughter told police Motsepe appeared to want to be the victim’s boyfriend.

Shocked, she pulled her hands away and the family contacted the centre’s security staff shortly after the first victim had done so.