'Star Wars' ewok faces jail for flashing on train yet again

By ANI | ANI 


London, June 17 (ANI): 'Star Wars' actor Nicholas Read is facing jail after he admitted exposing himself to a girl on a train for the second time. 

The 41-year-old actor flashed himself at a student on a train to Manchester and took a picture of her horrified friend using a mobile phone.

At the time of the offence, the 'Star Wars' star had just enrolled on a sex offenders' treatment programme for a similar crime.

The dwarf actor, who appeared as an Ewok in 'Return of the Jedi' and a goblin in 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone', has now been warned that he could be locked up.

He admitted exposing himself on January 21, at a Manchester Crown Court plea hearing.

The court had heard back in October 2010 that Read had sat next to a schoolgirl on a London to Leicester train and had performed a sex act under a juggler's hat for half an hour.

His latest offence puts him in breach of the 20-week suspended sentence that he was given for that offence.

The actor is now at risk of going to jail for the 20 weeks, in addition to the punishment for his latest offence, and will be sentenced on July 13.

"The bottom line is you are in breach of a suspended sentence," the Daily Mail quoted the Judge Roger Thomas QC as saying.

"The normal consequence of that is to prison you go and that may well have to be the outcome.

"But this is an unusual sort of case and the judge will be informed by the Probation Service about what's been going on over the last 12 months, and what sort of risk you pose hereafter," he said.

The judge refused a request by Rachel Faux, defending, for a psychiatric report to be prepared on Read, saying that there was "very little" evidence of mental illness in his case.

But the probation service will be preparing a report before Read is sentenced and there may yet be a psychiatric report if it is found to be necessary following that interview.

Read has been barred from using the rail network except for the purposes of attending court or visiting his solicitor.

He has been ordered to sign the sex offenders' register on the date of his last conviction for exposure.

The actor, of Wade Close, Cheadle, Staffordshire, has a number of sex offences on criminal record dating back to 1995.

Read has previously been convicted of making lewd phone calls to women. (ANI)