December 2013
Holloway train pervert banned from Overground services for five years after flashing at schoolgirls
A pervert who exposed himself to two teenage girls on an Overground train has been banned from using the service for five years.
Andrew Leontiou, 27, of Benwell Road, Holloway, was jailed for six months in November after admitting exposing himself to the girls, aged 13 and 15, on the service between Caledonian Road and Kentish Town in June.
He followed the girls among the platform where CCTV saw him exposing himself behind them.
He boarded a train with them at 7.40am and exposed himself again, following the girls down the train when they noticed and tried to move away from him.
Leontiou’s victims left the train at Kentish Town and told a PCSO. Leontiou was picked up by a British Transport Police PCSO at Gospel Oak.
In addition to jail, Leontiou, who was on licence for a previous sex offence, was banned from boarding London Overground trains during peak times for five years in a hearing at Blackfriars Crown Court on December 9.
He is also barred from entering Clissold Park and Sobel Leisure Centre until 2018.
Leontiou was convicted of a serious sexual assault on a woman in Clissold Park, Stoke Newington, in May 2011, as well as further sexual assaults at the Sobel Leisure Centre and in Highbury Crescent in April the same year, for which he received a 39-month prison term and was placed on the Sexual Offenders Register.
These were used by British Transport Police in their case against Leontiou to help maximise the ban.
Pc Robert Reed said: “Leontiou’s predatory nature caused not only alarm to the teenagers, but they were forced to leave the train early to escape him.
“Following his sentencing, we applied for a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) to ban Leontiou from continuing to carry out these unwanted sexual advances to passengers on trains.
“We welcome the sentence and SOPO handed to Leontiou and hope it serves as a warning that sexual offences anywhere on the rail network will not be tolerated and are taken extremely seriously by police and the courts.”
The order follows the launch of Project Guardian involving British Transport Police, Metropolitan Police, City of London Police and Transport for London to improve the levels of reporting among victims of sexual offences.
