A serial bus groper was branded a manipulative and deceitful menace to young girls as he faced prison for his latest sex crime.
It took less than an hour for a jury to convict remorseless Javed Montakhab, 64, of sexually assaulting a young woman on a packed bus.
The 18-year-old victim froze in terror as he touched her leg during a 30 to 45-minute ordeal, Teesside Crown Court heard.
Montakhab, of Cobden Street, Thornaby, had a string of previous convictions for molesting young women on buses, and used his bus pass so often it had been declined.
But he vehemently denied this “heinous offence”.
He insisted that the white-haired, bearded “animal” using his bus pass and captured on CCTV footage was not him.
The goateed pervert showed no reaction as the jury delivered its unanimous verdicts this afternoon.
Then he bowed his head in the dock as Judge John Walford told him: “You have tried repeatedly to delay or prolong this trial but your attempts have failed.
“You are in my judgment manipulative and deceitful.
“And you are unable or unwilling to change your behaviour, or indeed to show any remorse for what you like to do.
“You are in my judgment a menace to young girls.”
He said he would assess whether Montakhab was a dangerous offender, and his medical and psychological condition.
The judge remanded Montakhab in custody until he is sentenced next month.
Conor Quinn, defending, said prison was inevitable but a pre-sentence report would help the court as Montakhab had bipolar disorder.
The jury heard how Montakhab got on to a bus at Middlesbrough bus station and sat next to the 18-year-old woman.
He started touching and stroking her leg as the bus pulled away at about 5pm on November 27 last year.
The scared victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, tried to move away and push him away but did not feel able to confront him or make a scene.
She texted a friend during the journey saying she was shaking and close to tears.
Montakhab finally got off the bus in the Norton area, leaving the teenager traumatised.
The assault was reported to police and the attacker’s picture was circulated in Cleveland Police.
Montakhab - already on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely - was identified by his own monitoring officer in the sex offender management unit, who had visited him days earlier.
He had moved to Teesside following seven convictions for sexually assaulting young women on buses in Manchester in 2002, 2004 and 2011, the last offence earning him a 30-month jail term.
He was arrested by officers who saw him crawling around a home on Yarm Road, Stockton.
Montakhab gave an eccentric, rambling performance in the witness box during his trial this week.
Judge Walford repeatedly had to remind him to answer questions during the bizarre testimony.
Describing himself as an “Anglo-Persian” psychologist, Montakhab claimed the allegation did not “fit my modus operandi” and said he had “no sex drive”.
He said he was collecting food vouchers from a property on Yarm Road, Stockton at the time.
Evidence disproved his false alibi, showing the vouchers were issued the previous day.
He denied “hopping on buses left, right and centre” to touch young women, or that he was attracted to young girls.
He told prosecutor Shaun Dodds: “I’m not that animal that you’re portraying to the jury.”
He also denied that he sexually assaulted five teenage girls in Manchester in 2004, and said of his 2002 conviction: “She never complained.”
