A TERRIFIED 90-year-old woman was shaken awake in the middle of the night by an intruder who exposed himself to her and assaulted her.
A judge has ordered a report to be prepared to assess the danger posed by David Bale, who had also flashed at another woman after ringing her doorbell in the early hours.
Bale, 27, of Lytham Road, Overslade, had denied a charge of trespass with intent to commit a sexual offence, two charges of exposure, and two of common assault.
But on the second day of his trial at Warwick Crown Court his barrister Andrew Wilkins asked for all five charges to be put to him again – and he changed his pleas to guilty.
Prosecutor Richard McConaghy said that in May a 90-year-old woman was asleep at her home in Rugby when she was woken by someone tapping her arm.
She looked up and saw a man who exposed himself and told her to look.
Mr McConaghy told the jury the terrified woman tried to get past him and away, but he punched her to the head and she fell against a radiator, and kept telling her to look.
The sprightly pensioner managed to flee into the street, screaming for help.
As neighbours came to help, a man came from the side of her house pushing a mountain bike, went up to her and again told her to look at his genitals.
As she continued to shout for help, Bale told her to calm down, grabbed her and shook her and slapped her face, then walked away after turning to a neighbour and saying: ‘She’s crazy.’
A few minutes later, Bale returned pushing his bike, which had a broken chain, pretending he had heard a noise and had come to help, before walking off.
The police were called, and an officer on his way there saw a man pushing a bike in the Overslade area, so stopped to speak to him – but Bale escaped, dropping his phone as he did so.
Around that time, a woman living nearby had been woken by someone ringing her doorbell at 4.45am.
When she opened her window, he made an obscene proposition and exposed himself.
She called the police – and her adult grandson, who was also there, saw the man pushing a bike – and later identified him as Bale.
When an officer went to Bale’s home, he saw a mountain bike in the back garden with a broken chain, and he was arrested later that day.
Mr McConaghy pointed out the officer had gone there because there had been incidents of him exposing himself to women passing his home the previous month.
After Bale had entered his guilty pleas, Judge Anthony Potter agreed to a request by Mr Wilkins to adjourn for a pre-sentence report to be prepared on him.
But he stressed: “I also want it to assess the danger he poses, because it’s one thing to expose yourself to someone in public, it’s another thing to break into someone’s home to do it.”
He said the 90-year-old ‘presented as a remarkably resilient lady,’ but that he also wanted a statement on the impact the disturbing incident had had on her.
Remanding Bale in custody, Judge Potter told him: “It’s going to be a prison sentence, but the report will help me as to the length of the sentence.”
