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In the wake of the Westminster and Hollywood sex abuse scandals, an electrician has spoken of the harassment he says workmen face "monthly".

In one incident, a 67-year-old woman put her hand up a colleague's shorts and boxers while he was standing on a ladder and tugged on his penis and testicles, Simon* claimed.

This was never reported and although the housing association the men work for are aware of the woman's tendencies - they're often sent to the property in pairs to "be on the safe side" - no action has been taken.

Simon, who works mostly in Surrey, Windsor and Reading, says he has been propositioned for sex on numerous occasions - all by women - been inappropriately touched and made to feel uncomfortable due to sexual comments.

A woman in her 20s answered the door to him wearing nothing but a hand towel, he alleged, and then when he refused to enter her home, she dropped the towel and stood before him completely naked. She then changed to only a bra and knickers and "hovered near the bedroom" while he fixed something in the kitchen.

He didn't leave because "it happens all the time" and he "had a job to do".

Simon laughed the incident off, and admits that although he's joked about it with friends down the pub, others "may have taken it more seriously".

"If I walked into work and said a woman had touched my bottom, they'd laugh in my face," he told Get Surrey.

"It's quite common for women to strip in front of you.

"Other men down the pub will say something like 'corr you should have tried it on with her, she was game'. In this industry, people, if they've got a problem with your employer or something, they will trap you into doing something that you shouldn't do, then use it against you.

"You just pretend it isn't happening."

(Image: Publicity Picture)

He continued to say that certain tenants are "known" to the housing association as being sexually aggressive, yet the only protection offered to workmen is to attend in pairs. This, however, doesn't stop people, Simon claimed.

This was the case when his colleague faced the before-mentioned horrific sexual abuse while up a ladder. The same woman had also allegedly attempted to force the men's hands on her breasts, rubbed her face against their groin area asking to give them oral sex and touched them inappropriately.

But still they are sent to work at her house.

Simon said he has known colleagues, who after making complaints against female tenants following sexual advances, have lost their jobs due to counter claims.

"They've got no proof and out the door they go," he said.

He added: "You might talk about it in a jokey sense [at work] but you wouldn't dare report something like that, because you would get laughed at, number one. And number two, it's... as a woman if I claimed that I have been sexually assaulted it can be taken more seriously.

"There's everything in the media at the moment about it not being taken seriously for a long period of time, but in this specific period of time it would be taken seriously and serious action would be taken.

"If a man, and this is from my experience, was to claim that a woman sexually assaulted him or was inappropriate, and then that claim was to be bounced back to him, which is probably the main fear, who's going to be believed? It's not going to be the man."

He said the only time he would discuss harassment or assault with his managers is to "cover his own bum" - essentially make them aware of the situation should a counter claim ever be made.

"Nothing will ever be done about it," he said.

"Even if I asked for it to go forward, I think a lot of the time these companies wouldn't know what to do. They'd be like 'what on earth can I do about it?'"

Speaking of how he deals with it, Simon said: "I'm a fully grown man, I don't kind of laugh it off, go home and never think about it again.

"There will be people who are more sensitive than me that could possibly be upset by some of the things that go on."

In a survey in 2015, male rape and sexual abuse charity SurvivorsUK found that only 3.9% of men actually report their experiences.

The charity, in a Silent Suffering report, said it estimates that in the UK between 2010 and 2014, 679,051 sexual assaults and rapes of men took place. Of these, 652,568 were not reported to the police.

For more information on dealing with sexual abuse in the workplace, visit www.survivorsuk.org.

*Simon is a pseudonym. His name and workplace has been withheld at his request and in accordance with the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to protect his identity.

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