A SECURITY officer who turned a young woman’s city centre stroll into a terrifying sexual ordeal has been jailed.

Joshua James Hollingsworth, 34, pursued the 19-year-old victim for 40 minutes, repeatedly touching her, blocking her path, and running after her when she tried to escape his unwanted drunken attentions, said Matthew Bean prosecuting at York Crown Court.

At one point she tried unsuccessfully to hide from him behind a stone buttress on the riverbank and on two occasions, she fled down the stairs leading from Ouse Bridge to Kings Staith and back up again.

Her ordeal ended when she managed to phone police from a telephone box outside York Magistrates Court, in Clifford Street. Although she was too terrified to speak because Hollingsworth was immediately outside the kiosk, police sent a patrol to investigate.

The entire 40-minute incident was captured on CCTV operated by City of York Council. A council spokesman said its staff contacted police “immediately” on seeing the incident. But police have yet to confirm this, though they could confirm they responded to the woman’s 999 call.

Judge Stephen Ashurst, the Recorder of York, told Hollingsworth about the woman: “It was clear she was not interested in you. The psychological impact of what you did upon that young woman has been very considerable indeed. “She must have been petrified as to what might have happened to her. Here was a 19-year-old woman close to the river in the city centre on a stroll when she was being molested by a man who was to her a complete stranger.”

He jailed Hollingsworth for nine months and put him on the sex offenders’ register for ten years.

Hollingsworth, of Waincroft, Strensall, pleaded guilty to sexual assault.

His barrister Chloe Fairley said he had been suspended from his job as security officer over the incident and expected to lose it. He was a very heavy drinker, finishing work at 10pm and then going out drinking by himself.

He was struggling to come to terms with what he had done. Since his arrest, he had started regular counselling for alcohol abuse. Mr Bean said the woman had gone for a walk in the city centre in the early hours of February 23 last year and after Hollingsworth approached her, had tried to stay near the bridge because she knew it was covered by CCTV.