A MAN caught masturbating in the Westgate car park has been told to complete a sex offenders’ course.

Yesterday, Oxford magistrates sentenced Patrick McGirr, of Oxford Road, Kidlington, to a three-year community order and told him to pay £750 costs and a £60 victims’ surcharge.

The 44-year-old was found guilty on one count of outraging public decency after he was arrested by Pc Ben Simmons on June 3 this year.

After his trial, during which he denied the offence and claimed he was only urinating in a public stairwell, it was revealed he is suspected of 16 similar incidents in the Andover area.

John Chappell, prosecuting, said the officer spotted McGirr in a stairwell doorway in the car park, which opens on to Norfolk Street, at about 1.45pm.

Giving evidence, Pc Simmons said he approached the defendant and saw he was “shaking furiously”.

He said: “I shouted for him to stop. He hadn’t seen me at this point and as I got close to him he looked up. He didn’t button up his trousers and darted up the stairway.”

The officer said it only took him “two or three strides” to catch up with McGirr and arrest him.

Magistrates ordered McGirr to complete the Thames Valley Sex Offender Groupwork Programme.