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A man has appeared in court – accused of having sex with a mattress.

A PSNI sergeant told a special sitting of the Magistrate’s Court in Derry that he found the convicted sex offender, naked from the waist down, watching porn on a handheld DVD player and having simulated sex with a mattress in the car park of an old peoples’ home in the city in the early hours of Saturday.

Martin Gregory Coll, 52, of no fixed abode, appeared in court charged with two offences linked to the alleged incident.

He is charged with committing indecent behaviour in the car park at Lavery Fold Old Peoples’ Home at Asylum Road. The defendant is further charged with “committing an act of lewd, obscene and disgusting nature and of outraging public decency by watching pornography in a public place and with having simulated sex with a mattress while naked”.

The police sergeant told District Judge Peter King that the defendant, who was given a suspended sentenced last week for stealing three charity boxes from the Translink bus depot offices at Foyle Street in Derry, was observed entering the rear car park of the old peoples’ home by police officers at 5am on Saturday.

He added: “He went to the rear car park which is used by staff and by residents. Officers went to check and when they arrived they heard what they described as sex sounds emanating from behind a fence in the car park. He had a handheld DVD player with the volume turned loud.

“He was laying on a mattress naked from the waist down with his trousers and underwear down by his ankles and he was simulating sex with the mattress. A number of residents in the old peoples’ home were awake at the time but they did not want to make a statement to the police.”

District Judge King said the defendant had 72 previous convictions. He remanded Coll, who is already the subject of a Sexual Offender’s Prevention Order, in custody until Thursday of this week.

Last week in the same court a barrister told resident District Judge Barney McElholm that the defendant was unable to obtain hostel accommodation because of the nature of his criminal record, which included four convictions for sexual offences.

Mr McElholm said the case of the homeless Coll highlighted the need for a half-way accommodation system for released prisoners. He imposed a four-month jail sentence, suspended for two years.