A MAN wearing a balaclava sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl in Bolton’s Market Place shopping centre.

But friends who were with the schoolgirl followed Felmeta Kadir and one of them attacked him before police arrived to arrest him.

Bolton Crown Court heard how 24-year-old Kadir was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and, just four days later, committed a similar offence against a doctor.

Vanessa Thomson, prosecuting, told how the schoolgirl and her group of friends had gone to the shopping centre on Boxing Day last year.

“At about 3pm that afternoon the girl and her friends were standing by the foot of some stairs in the shopping centre when one of the group noticed this defendant descending,” said Miss Thomson.

“Unusually, they noticed he was wearing a balaclava which covered all of his face except his eyes.

“One of the girl’s friends jokingly said to the defendant that another of the children thought he was ‘fit’.”

As Kadir reached the group he slapped his victim hard on the bottom over her clothing and squeezing a buttock.

“He held onto her left buttock for about five seconds before letting go,” said Miss Thomson.

The girl and her friend ran off and reported what had happened to a shopping centre security guard and phoned her mum.

As Kadir left the centre the schoolgirls' friends followed, confronted him and one of them assaulted him.

Kadir ran off but was found a short distance away by police and arrested.

In a victim statement the girl said: “No one has the right to touch me. I am scared to go back to the Market Place in case I see him again.

“Wherever I go I am wary of people approaching me and my friends and am worried about what will happen next.”

Kadir was sectioned because of concerns about his mental health but, while detained in hospital, he was spotted closely following a doctor while she made her ward rounds.

When she moved to one side to let him pass her, he slapped her on the backside.

She told the court: “I don’t believe I come to work to be assaulted.”

Ethiopian-born Kadir, of no fixed address, has been remanded in custody since being released from hospital and pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault.

Andrew Marsh, defending, told the court: “It appears he lacks insight into his condition.”

Judge Walsh stated that Kadir, of no fixed address, has spent time on remand which means he has already served any prison term he could impose, and so the public will be best protected by the maximum length of a community sentence.

Kadir was given a three-year community sentence which includes 12 months of drug rehabilitation, 18 months of mental health treatment, 40 days of rehabilitation activities and a condition that he live, for 12 months, at an address in Liverpool.