A MOBILITY scooter driver has been convicted of ramming a shopper with his vehicle and grabbing her breast.

Bolton magistrates were told how Marshall Hart encountered the 20-year-old woman and her boyfriend as they walked along Mealhouse Lane in Bolton town centre on June 21.

The couple explained to the court how they were on a Sunday shopping trip at about 3.30pm.

As they walked past Hart heading in the opposite direction he stared at the boyfriend and muttered “pervert” before doing a u-turn on his scooter and chasing after them.

Giving evidence, the female victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told how 46-year-old Hart overtook them and swung the scooter into her shins before leaning over and grabbing her arm and breast so hard that she was bruised.

She said: “Because he wouldn’t let go of me I had a purse in my left hand and hit him across the cheekbone.”

Hart shouted racial insults at the woman’s 28-year-old boyfriend and pursued the couple again as the woman called police for help on her mobile phone.

Police advised them to head to the nearest shop so the couple went into Superdrug in Deansgate where, three minutes later, Hart also entered having parked his scooter outside.

The woman added: “He was following me all around the aisles. I was falling over baskets and everything in distress, trying to get away from him.”

Security staff from the Market Place arrived and escorted Hart, of Paderborn Court, Bolton, outside until police arrived to arrest him.

Hart, who told magistrates he has chronic asthma, denied sexually assaulting the woman and racially abusing her boyfriend.

He claimed in court that he had not touched the woman or verbally abused the couple, alleging instead that the boyfriend had called him a “dirty paedophile” and the pair had both hit him.

But magistrates convicted him of both charges.

Sentencing was adjourned until October 16 to allow for reports to be prepared.

Hart was granted bail on condition he does not contact his victim or enter Superdrug or Marks and Spencer.