A man was caught masturbating in a public library while perusing Lord Alan Sugar's autobiography.

The Sun reported that the unnamed individual was cuffed by police last Thursday at Crawley Library in West Sussex.

The man, who is in his 30s, was seen behaving oddly as he browsed books in the biz section of the library.

He eventually selected Sugar's What You See Is What You Get autobiography.

More surprisingly, he covered his lap with his coat and started having what the Hackney, London-born star of The Apprentice might refer to as a tommy tank.

He was detained by security guards, after staff at the library saw the man toying with his todger. Police held the man on suspicion of outraging public decency.

An anonymous source who witnessed the man masturbating told The Sun : "He spent about 20 minutes looking through the books in the business section before selecting Alan Sugar's autobiography.

"He was behaving rather oddly so we kept an eye on him and then he just sat down with his coat over his lap and started pleasuring himself as he looked through the book.

"It was very bizarre behaviour and our security guys got a hold of him before too many people saw what he was doing."

The man was banned from returning to the library and cautioned by police.

Lord Alan, who has been wasting lots of time being shouty at Piers Morgan on Twitter, offered his own thoughts about the sorry incident this morning.

"Pervert Caught Pleasuring Himself In Library While Reading my Book – mixing business with pleasure? Piers, was that you?" ®