Man who asked woman for kiss sentenced in legal first

A man has been given a 12 month community order after being convicted in a first-of-its-kind sex-based harassment charge brought by the British Transport Police.

David Stroud grabbed a woman's hair and asked if he could kiss her on a train to London from Hastings, East Sussex.

He was arrested two days after a new law banning harassment motivated by a person's sex came into force.

The 44-year-old, from Dartford in Kent, had pleaded guilty at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court in May.

In a statement made during the first criminal sentencing of its kind in England and Wales on Tuesday, the woman said she felt "trapped, powerless and petrified".

"I always feel the need to have company when I leave the house now," she said.

"I can never truly go anywhere on my own, simply because I'm a woman."