A brazen and "insidious" man has been reported to police for allegedly watching pornography while riding buses and trams and "getting off" on women's reactions.
The Manchester Evening News has spoken to six women who claim to have been targeted by the unknown man from as far back as November 2021.
All the women have given consistent accounts of how the man allegedly sits in front of them, positioning his phone so they have to see the explicit content and then looking behind him or viewing their reactions in the reflection of his phone screen - potentially recording them.
Two of the women even reported he appeared to be touching himself during the incident.
Students, renamed as Eva and Isobel, said they saw the man on the 143 bus last Tuesday.
They said: "It was funny when it started, at first we were like, surely this is not happening.
"We were laughing because we were sort of in shock, we just wanted to make a joke out of it. And then as it just kept going, we got really uncomfortable. We thought, he’s looking at us weird - what if he gets off at the same stop as us? It’s late at night.”
The students found a social media post written by another girl named as Megan who had almost the exact same experience on the same night.
When they got in touch with each other they realised that neither incident was isolated.
The women reported their experience to the police who confirmed they are investigating the incidents alongside Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and Stagecoach.
According to Megan, the man started off watching "fart porn" and then progressed to watching more and more extreme videos while checking behind him to see their reactions.
When two women in front of her left the bus, the man moved into their seats and so moved closer to Megan.
Megan decided to post on Facebook about the incident to see if anyone else had a similar encounter and she was shocked to find there were others who had experienced the same.
Chief Inspector Stephen Griffin, from Greater Manchester Police (GMP)’s Transport Unit, encouraged anybody who has seen this kind of behaviour to come forward.
He said if any encounter has left you feeling “harassed, alarmed, or distressed,” it should be reported to the police - no matter how small.
Mr Griffin highlighted that any incident causing these feelings can be treated as public order offences, giving police the ability to make arrests.
Kate Green, his counterpart at TfGM who managed the Travel Safe Partnership, stressed that reports should be made on the basis of how you ‘feel’, rather than how ‘serious’ you think the incident is.
In fact, Megan said she didn't know how to feel after the incident. She said: "I don't know where the line is. Because obviously, I'm glad that he wasn't doing this, but if he was touching himself, then there would be a very clear physical boundary.”
“But I didn't know what he was doing. Other than that he was watching the video and seeing how we were reacting. I had to really clarify that actually, it was quite insidious.”
A spokesperson for Stagecoach Manchester said: “The safety of our customers is our absolute priority. We are absolutely appalled at the behaviour which has been reported and we are currently supporting the police in any way that we can with their inquiries.
"We would advise anyone who has been subjected to unacceptable behaviour to report the details to our drivers as soon as possible. All incidents raised with us are reported to TravelSafe.
"We appreciate that some customers may not feel comfortable doing this at the time of an incident, but we would encourage them to report it to both ourselves and the police as soon as possible afterwards. This allows us to access on-bus CCTV to support the police with their investigations."
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