A groper who targeted women indiscriminately won’t be sentenced until April.

Neil Shorter was before Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday morning (February 28) to be sentenced for sexually assaulting women in April, June and November last year.

But Judge Ian Pringle KC adjourned the case for a month after raising concerns about the risk posed by the 53-year-old defendant, who sat in the dock wearing a baby blue jumper and grey tracksuit trousers.

He apologised to one of the victims who had come to court to read her victim impact statement, and who watched proceedings from the public gallery in courtroom one.

“I am extremely sorry but I have real concerns about the person in the dock here and I don’t want to sentence him unless I know the full picture and how much of a danger he is to people like yourself and that I can deal with him properly so he is no longer a danger to people like you. I hope you understand,” he told the woman.

Earlier, prosecutor Matthew Knight said that Shorter was given a community order by an Oxford judge in 2021 for pawing women in the county.

Later in the year, a judge in Truro gave him a hospital order; at the time of the case there was a ‘question’ over whether he was fit to plead and, on the advice of a psychiatrist, the judge imposed an order requiring him to receive hospital treatment.

However, he came under the care of a well-respected Oxford psychiatrist in the following year whose view differed to the doctor who recommended a hospital order. “Dr Cornish’s view was Mr Shorter was deliberately feigning the tests,” Mr Knight told the court.

Mr Knight said the defendant had been offending against a number of different victims now, including detention officers in the police station, prison officers, and members of the public.

The matter in the Truro courts had involved him approaching a female dog walker on the coast path and run his hand down her back, the prosecutor said.

Judge Pringle told the lawyers on Tuesday: “These offences trouble me and that probably doesn’t surprise you.” Having previously been in trouble once – for drink driving – Shorter began assaulting women in his 50s, the judge said.

Shorter, of Woodstock Road, Oxford, was remanded in custody until the sentencing hearing on April 5.

He was represented at Tuesday’s hearing by advocate Gareth James.