Pensioner stripped naked sat in window as school bus arrived

And 71-year-old former soldier Thomas Beattie also showed one of the girls a photograph of his penis on his mobile phone.

Beattie denied the allegations but was convicted after a trial during which the district judge was shown a photograph on the girl’s phone corroborating her evidence.

Although the charge of exposure of which he was found guilty only related to one day District Judge Wendy Lloyd told him, “It was well known that you would be naked at the window at the time the school bus arrived.”

Shannen Carey, prosecuting, told Liverpool, Knowsley and St Helens Magistrates’ Court that in early March last year the mum of a 15-year-old girl reported to police that her daughter told her she had seen Beattie exposing himself from a front window on a number of occasions over the previous 12 months.

READ > Police update on Ashley Dale murder investigation

Her daughter told how on March 12 she got off the bus home from school at the stop opposite waste land by his home with her friend.

“She walked past Beattie’s home and saw him stood in his front window with a phone to his ear. As she walked past he turned the telephone away towards her and on the telephone screen she saw a clear photograph of a penis.

"It looked like it had been taken from above as a selfie-style shot. He said something but she only heard the word ‘inch’. She went home and told  her mum.”

Beattie, of Crow Lane West, Newton-le-Willows, was found guilty of exposure and causing a child aged 15 to look at an image of sexual activity.

Thomas Beattie (Image: Submitted)

The defendant, who has no previous convictions represented himself at the sentencing hearing, and told the court “I’m innocent.”

“I was in the Army and have never been in trouble before. I have worked all my life and I’m not a threat to the community,” he said.

District Judge Lloyd told him that he had put the girl and her friend through the ordeal of giving evidence in court and both were cross-examined.

“I found the prosecution proved the matters beyond any reasonable doubt.”

She told him: “I find you sexually entertained yourself by displaying yourself and your naked penis to a young girl. You knew what time the school bus was due and you made sure when it was due you did not have any clothes on.”

The judge said she believed that being in his own home disinhibited him.

She added that he had claimed the girls were lying and used the excuse of hanging out his towel for exposing himself.

DJ Lloyd said that she had to punish him and prevent further offending and sentenced him to 20 weeks imprisonment but said that as she believed he was unlikely to re-offend she would suspend the term for 18 months.

She also imposed a 20-week curfew and ordered him to pay costs totalling £528 and sign on the Sex Offenders Register.