A mum has revealed how her family were left "feeling like criminals" after a paedophile arcade worker targeted her daughter.
While families enjoyed the summer weather and bank holidays during the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, a family headed to Lytham St Anne's arcade. But within an hour of arriving at the popular destination north of Merseyside, their 15-year-old daughter was frozen in fear when Omar Hayes molested her while she played on an arcade machine.
The girl's mum, speaking out after Hayes was jailed for six months for the attack, said she was horrified to learn the arcade security guard has previously been to prison for taking upskirt photos of schoolgirls.
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She asked: "How can someone with those kind of convictions be allowed to work in an amusement arcade?"
Hayes was sentenced in 2016 to nine months in prison after he was seen using a mobile phone to film up children's school skirts aged 12 and 13 while they queued at McDonald's in Blackpool. But despite the arcades being a magnet for families and teenagers, Hayes was able to get himself a job on the pier, patrolling the amusement arcade, Lancs Live reports.
The mum, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: "I noticed him looking at my daughter as soon as we arrived. He just looked really dodgy. It's mum's instinct, isn't it?
"My daughter put her phone and ring down on one of the 2p slot machines and I thought he was going to rob her.
"I told her to put her things away but then I noticed he was wearing a walkie-talkie, and realised he was security so I brushed my fears aside. We gave the older kids some money to play on the machines and took our younger daughter to play on things for her age."
As their teenage daughter played on an arcade machine with her brother, Hayes came up beside her and began putting extra money into the machine in order to keep her there. When he groped her, the schoolgirl froze.
The girl's mum said: "We had only been gone about 15 minutes but I said to my husband 'we had better go and check on them'. When they came into our eye line, Hayes was walking behind, really close.
"I just knew he had done something. As soon as my daughter saw us she burst into tears.
"I just had a sick feeling in my stomach and ran towards them. My husband got to him [Hayes] first and got hold of him. He detained him on the floor but when the other security guards came over they told my husband to let him go.
"They told Hayes to go in the back and we were ushered outside the arcade. I was causing a bit of a scene because he's a worker and he had just touched my child.
"My husband called the police but we were left standing outside for almost an hour while we waited for them to arrive. No one from the arcade came to help us. It felt like they were watching us more than they were watching him, staying at the front of the arcade to make sure we didn't go back in.
"My daughter was distraught. She couldn't even speak and there was nowhere for us to go. I asked to speak to the manager but they said he wasn't there. It seemed strange, a busy place like that, that no one was in charge. No one from the arcade would speak to us. It was only when the police arrived that the manager came and introduced himself. We felt like we were the criminals, like we were the ones who had done something wrong.
"All my husband did was detain him. He got off very lightly when you think what a lot of dads would do in that situation. I'm absolutely disgusted. Even after Hayes was jailed we didn't get a sorry. They must have known about him. His previous convictions are all online."
At Preston Crown Court, Hayes, of St David's Road South, was jailed for six months. Judge Guy Mathieson described him as "an unrepentant paedophile" and criticised the pervert for putting the teenager through the ordeal of a trial.
But his victim's mum says the sentence does not make up for the effect his behaviour has had on her daughter. "She is not the same person", she said. "She is still a child and hasn't really taken it all in but it has changed her."
In a victim impact statement, read in court, the girl said she has lost confidence and spent nights sobbing in bed. She is conscious of how she dresses and does not trust men, as she fears she will be targeted again.
St Anne's Pier Arcade was approached by LancsLive on whether background checks had been carried out on Hayes, if they knew of Hayes' previous conviction when they employed him, and the mum's disappointment in how the aftermath of the incident was handled.
A spokesperson for St Anne's Pier Arcade said: "We were made aware of Mr Hayes' conviction on Tuesday when the mum came to the arcade to thank our staff for their assistance in the court case. Mr Hayes had been working for us for approximately four or five days as an arcade attendant when the incident occurred. We are pleased to hear that justice has now been served. At the pier we always take seriously the safety of our visitors."
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