January 2007 Sex pest spared jail sentence A SEX pest who terrified women by posing as the boss of a modelling agency has been spared a jail sentence. Matthew Bourne, of Wilden, exposed himself to a 24-year-old pregant woman and groped a 20-year-old. A schoolgirl, approached by Bourne when she was 13, told the jury they exchanged mobile phone numbers. In text messages he offered her £60 an hour to pose for photographs and called her “gorgeous” and “sexy”. Bourne claimed he had five regular models and was creating a website for model pictures. Police got her to arrange a meeting with Bourne and then arrested him. A third charge of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity was left to lie on the prosecution file. He used the model agency ploy to meet strangers in the Blackpole area of Worcester, where he worked as a customer services operator for a computer software firm. He pleaded guilty to exposure and sexual assault during his trial at Worcester Crown Court two months ago. The case had been adjourned for a psychiatric report. Judge Andrew Geddes told Bourne, 25, of Abbotts Close, Wilden, that he had committed “distressing, frightening and shocking offences”. His only explanation had been that he was bored at a time when a romance was not going well. Bourne told police he was glad when he was caught because it stopped him offending further. The judge said he needed help to cure him of his obsessive behaviour, although he was not suffering from mental illness. He gave Bourne a three-year community order, which included a sex offenders’ work programme. The jury heard how one victim, five months pregnant, rejected his offer to pose as a model. He then exposed himself on a canal towpath and asked her to perform a sex act. He also confronted two women in an alley near Sainsbury’s supermarket and grabbed one. Ignatius Hughes, defending, said Bourne now had a stable relationship and there was no suggestion he was a paedophile. His “outrageous behaviour” was carried out in public. Bourne was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for five years.
