Anger over store pervert; Mum says sex act unreported.

Byline: GARRY WILLEY

A MOTHER is demanding to know why a supermarket ignored her son's trauma at the hands of a sex pest.

The 10-year-old was left distressed after John Doyle exposed himself and performed a sex act in the gent's toilets at Morrisons, Jarrow.

The boy was so upset he wanted his mother, who ran trying to catch Doyle, not to report his ordeal.

But she told a store supervisor what had happened, expecting an inquiry.

Instead, last November's incident was neither logged nor passed to police, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

Only when the mum asked officers on patrol at the store a month later how the investigation was going did the truth emerge.

Finally, Doyle, 60, was tracked down after police began an inquiry.

Now the mother - praised in court by Judge Guy Whitburn - wants answers from Morrisons as Doyle begins supervision as part of a suspended jail term.

She said: "I thought it was disgusting because any child could be in danger and exposed to that kind of gross behaviour.

"It was the fact they had not taken any action. I am furious."

Even when the mum, from Hebburn, challenged senior staff after the police had become involved, she claims she was made to feel "guilty".

She said: "It was as if they wanted it brushed under the carpet. Nothing had been documented at all."

Doyle, from Edinburgh Road, Jarrow, first denied he had done anything wrong when he was arrested.

But CCTV had captured him in the store that day, the 10-year-old picked him out on an ID parade, and he admitted sexual activity in the presence of a child.

And he even confessed he had been about to repeat the offence a little later, prowling around a children's club at Cineworld cinema, Boldon, before staff moved in, the court heard.

Judge Whitburn said: "I want it conveyed to the mother how right she was to make a fuss, absolutely right."

He gave Doyle a nine-month jail sentence suspended for two years with supervision. The judge also banned him from working with children, imposed an order forbidding Doyle from having any child in his home without the parent's permission, and ordered him to register as a sex offender for three years.

A spokesperson for Morrisons said: "Morrisons has robust procedures in place to deal with all types of incidents in store. Throughout this investigation Morrisons has been eager to provide the police with supporting evidence to help apprehend the culprit, and in this particular case was able to provide evidence critical to his eventual arrest and prosecution."