A STOREMAN has been jailed for a year for committing a sex act outside a Hereford nightclub.

Young women saw Stephen Alexander outside Manhattans at 11.40pm on April 7 performing the act with his trousers round his ankles, said Gareth Walters, prosecuting.

Alexander, aged 37, of Springfield Avenue, Hunderton, Hereford, who pleaded guilty at Worcester Cown Court to indecent exposure, was said by Judge Andrew Geddes to be a danger to young women.

He ordered Alexander to sign on the sex offenders register for five years and not to work or live with persons under 18.

He will also be on licence for 12 months after he is released from prison.

Probation officer Tania Young told the court that Alexander had not responded to programmes for sex offenders and his pattern of offending was likely to escalate.

The judge said on Monday that Alexander had been jailed for six years in 1993 for raping a woman he had followed home from a nightclub.

He was jailed for a further four years in 1997 for indecent assault. He had been ordered to register as a sex offender for life. "I have come to the conclusion that you represent a significant risk to members of the public," he said.

Nigel Hall, defending, maintained that Alexander posed no risk and had been forced to move house after being vilified in the press after a previous court appearance.