A MAN with learning difficulties has appeared in court for sexually assaulting a woman at a bus stop.

The 25-year-old woman was on her way to work before dawn when Mark Sands struck up a conversation with her, David Hall, prosecuting, told York Crown Court.

Then he grabbed her hand and groped her. He also made her touch him.

The incident left her so distressed, she avoided using public transport for some time afterwards.

Sands told police the next day: “She was a very nice attractive young lady. I tried to stop myself, but I couldn’t.”

Defence barrister John Boumphrey said Sands, of Uppercroft, Haxby, had a “low mental age” and therefore “low culpability”.

He works at an organisation that specialises in providing jobs for people with learning difficulties.

Mr Boumphrey said: “He is very sorry for the whole situation arising.

“He knows he caused a problem for the complainant in the case, he has caused problems for everyone involved.”

The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, ordered Sands to pay the woman £750 compensation, plus £200 prosecution costs, and conditionally discharged him for two years.

He also made a restraining order banning him from having any contact with the woman for the next ten years. “I am quite sure she must have been extremely anxious as to how the situation could have developed,” the judge said.

He said it was not a case of Sands being able to “buy his way” out of trouble, but he had to look at all the circumstances including a detailed psychological report on Sands which had concluded he was a low risk to the general public, he said.

He had no previous convictions and had stayed out of trouble since the incident in November 2009.

He had immediately confessed his crime and showed genuine remorse and he was supported by his father, who had sole care of him.

The court heard the woman has started using buses again.