Shane Rees, 44, told Swindon Crown Court that being struck in the head by a steel girder in the early 1990s had left him with damage to his frontal lobe (Picture: Swindon Advertiser / SWNS.COM)

A serial flasher has been spared jail after claiming a brain injury from 30 years ago caused his behaviour.

Shane Rees, 44, from Wiltshire, masturbated in a house window for more than 30 minutes in front of a landlord who was showing a prospective tenant around a property in January last year.

The former demolition worker, who has a history of indecent exposure dating back to 1996, told Swindon Crown Court that being struck on the head by a steel girder in the early 1990s had left him with damage to his frontal lobe.

On January 30 last year, the landlord noticed curtains twitching in the window of a nearby house, Tessa Hingston, prosecuting, said.


Rees outside Swindon Crown Court (Picture: Swindon Advertiser / SWNS.COM)

Ms Hingston continued: ‘He goes on to describe the naked person moving the window to and fro. It was absolutely clear that he was masturbating.’



When the landlord came out of his property around 30 minutes later, Rees was still at the window performing a sex act upon himself while naked.

In 2010, Rees was convicted of six exposure incidents when the police rigged up an undercover camera to catch him after numerous reports from different women.

The latest incident put the former demolition worker in breach of a suspended sentence imposed at Gloucester Crown Court in 2017 for similar charges.

He refused to answer most of the questions put to him by police, instead suggesting the individual who had reported the incident could have been in collusion with those who had alerted officers for similar behaviour in the past.

Sarah Jenkins, prosecuting, said her client spent time in hospital after he was hit in the head in the early 1990s while on a team working on the demolition of the Thorn Electrical Factory in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.

Psychological reports ordered in 2017 when he faced allegations of indecent exposure at Gloucester Crown Court revealed the accident had left Rees with damage to his frontal lobe and stated he may have been more disinhibited as a result.

Swindon Crown Court heard (Picture: PA Archive/PA Images)

In January he had been suffering from headaches brought on by stress and had turned to alcohol to self-medicate, and the advocate said his offending typically coincided with alcohol binges.

Rees pleaded guilty to indecent exposure in court, saying he had no memory of standing at his front window naked on January 30 last year but accepted it must have been him.

He was sentenced to six months imprisonment suspended for two years and ordered to complete a six-month alcohol rehabilitation programme and 200 hours of unpaid work.

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Judge Peter Crabtree warned the flasher he must comply with the order, saying he would ‘not muck about’.

He said: ‘He gets breached at the earliest opportunity, if there are any breaches, and sent back to me.’

Rees was also fined £500 for breaching the community order and must sign onto the sex offenders’ register for five years.