A POST office worker who groped women customers has been jailed for six months.

Adnan Javeed, who worked at the post office in Market Street, Little Lever, asked the women for hugs and went on to touch their breasts.

Javeed, aged 28, of Lobelia Avenue, Farnworth, had denied two sexual assaults, committed on July 28 and December 2 last year, but was found guilty by a jury.

The court heard how Javeed, a married father-of-one’s first victim was a woman who went into the post office in July and asked if she could have some cigarettes “on tick”.

Javeed told her she could if he could have a hug in return.

“She was prepared to hug you, or you hug her, but you, of course, had more in mind,” Judge Richard Gioserano told Javeed.

Javeed led her to a part of the shop out of full view of the shop’s CCTV, but it still managed to film him trying to kiss her and put his hand down her top.

“It was a concerted effort to touch her breast under her clothing,” said the judge.

During the trial, Javeed suggested the woman had lied about being sexually assaulted to get out of paying for her cigarettes.

“That utter nonsense was, quite rightly, rejected by the jury,” said Judge Gioserano.

The woman was so distressed she contacted police and Javeed was arrested and at the time police told him no action would be taken against him.

But on December 2, Javeed assaulted another woman who came into the shop, grabbing her breast after asking her for a Christmas hug.

Javeed claimed it had been an accident and the woman had been mistaken about what happened.

But Judge Gioserano told him: “You thought you had got away with it once so you thought you could get away with it twice.”

Michael Brady, prosecuting, stressed that neither of the shop work’s victims are seeking financial compensation.

The court heard that Javeed has shown no remorse.

Craig Macgregor, defending, told the judge that Javeed is a man of previous good character whose wife is expecting their second child in March.

He added that Javeed had been brought to the UK for child labour, but had escaped and for the past nine years has worked in the shop.

“This was a once-in-a-lifetime aberration which can be put behind him and he can become a useful member of society,” said Mr Macgregor

The judge told Javeed: “In the normal course of events you are honest, hard-working and trustworthy, but honest and trustworthy is not what springs to mind when you consider what you did to these two women.”

The judge told Javeed that he had to send him to prison immediately.

“The effect of this upon your wife and your baby is very sad indeed, but not, in my judgement, enough to suspend the sentence,” he said.

In addition to the prison sentence, Javeed will be placed on the sex offenders’ register for seven years and he is barred from working with children and vulnerable adults.