A MAN who molested a lone teenage girl on a bus has been warned he is likely to go to jail.

John Beautyman, 45, was found guilty of sexual assault by a jury at York Crown Court after it heard a harrowing account of the attack from his young victim.

The incident happened on a bus travelling from Selby to York, shortly after 10.30pm on March 22 last year.

CCTV footage shown in court showed Beautyman had moved from one side of the bus to the other and sat opposite the girl.

His victim, who was 18 at the time, claimed Beautyman asked her what book she was reading then asked if she “had ever done anything on a bus which nobody had ever done before”.

The court heard how Beautyman then pushed his hand between her legs and she fled to the front of the bus.

She explained: “I wanted to be near the bus driver so nothing else could happen.

“He (Beautyman) said ‘sorry love, I shouldn’t have done that,’ or words to that effect. I said ‘damn right you shouldn’t’.”

She told how Beautyman had apologised twice more before he got off in Fulford.

When the bus driver became aware something was wrong, he took the terrified girl to Fulford Police station where she gave officers a description of her attacker. He was later found by police, drinking at the Bay Horse, and taken to Fulford for questioning.

In court, Beautyman, of Rome House, Eboracum Way, York, said that while on the bus to York, he moved closer to the girl just to chat with her about the book she was reading.

“She stood up and went to the front of the bus,” he said.

Under further questioning, he said: “I realised I had upset her in some way and wanted to apologise to her.

“I thought I had scared her – I’m a big bloke with a bald head.”

Christine Egerton, for the prosecution, said to him: “There was no need for you to move to her at all. You moved because you had other things on your mind, didn’t you?” Beautyman denied all the charges.

The jury found him guilty of sexual assault, but not guilty of a more serious charge of sexual assault with penetration.

Following the verdict, the Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, warned Beautyman: “The court is likely to take a very dim view of someone who commits a sexual assault on a stranger on her way home, on a bus.”

“You are an intelligent man and you must realise that a custodial sentence is likely.” Beautyman will be sentenced at a later date.