A PAINTER and decorator with a “fetish” for dropping money on the ground and watching women pick it up has been ordered to carry out unpaid work.

Stuart McGhie of Bargus Close in Steventon admitted two breaches of an anti-social behaviour (Asbo) order between May and October last year at Oxford Crown Court yesterday.

Nigel Ogborne, prosecuting, said the 45-year-old twice allowed bank notes to fall from his pocket in Abingdon, once in the town centre and once on a bus.

He said teenage schoolgirls were nearby and McGhie left the money hoping they would pick it up, which they did on the bus.

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The barrister said he is banned from doing so by an Asbo made in 2002, but has breached that order 17 times.

Alexandra Bull, defending, said McGhie never went further than dropping the bank notes and was driven by “some sort of fetishism”.

She said: “What he is seeking is the adrenaline of waiting to see if they will pick the money up. It is a bit of a game, a ‘will-they won’t-they’ feeling.”

Recorder Patrick Vincent said sending McGhie to prison for behaviour some might only see as “a bit strange” was not appropriate. He added that on the two occasions, the girls had not been distressed by his behaviour, and he had also been in custody since November.

McGhie was made subject to a community order for 12 months with 100 hours of unpaid work.