Driver’s indecent act as he mocked transgender pals
A MAN pleasured himself in front of two transgender women at a remote beauty spot.
The friends were left disgusted and distressed by forklift driver Graham Beevers’ behaviour at Buckstones car park above Marsden Moor.
The 52-year-old denied pulling down his shorts and touching himself in front of the women.
He claimed he’d gone to the area to watch hang gliders but was found guilty of exposure following a trial at Kirklees Magistrates’ Court.
Beevers faces jail after the Huddersfield court heard how he ‘demonstrated hostility’ at the women by laughing at them because he thought they looked funny. Heartbreakingly, one of the victims told how she was subjected to abuse on a daily basis because of her appearance.
Samuel Poniah, prosecuting, said that the incident happened at the New Hey Road site on July 27 last year.
The victims were described as friends having bonded over their transgender identities and love of cars.
They arrived at the beauty spot at around 2.30pm to have a picnic and take some pictures.
At 4.30pm Beevers pulled up alongside their convertible in his Honda Civic, looking at both of them for a while before reversing back into a parking spot. He then got out to sit on a nearby fence.
One of the victims, the driver of the convertible, told the court how Beevers fondled himself and stared at them for two or three minutes. The victim said she didn’t get out of her car to challenge Beevers, of Lytton Street in Halifax, because she wasn’t sure what his reaction would be.
She said: “I thought it best to stay in the safety of the car as hopefully he was going to go away.
Beevers then jumped down and walked towards the women’s car.
He was naked from the waist down. He drove off when a van arrived.
The victim said: “Being transgender you pay the price. Whenever you’re out in public you have lots of derogatory words aimed at you.”
The second victim told how what she saw turned her stomach and that she had been unable to return to the area since.
Beevers’ solicitor Aubrey Sampson said that the women couldn’t have seen him naked because they failed to notice distinctive features on his body, two large tattoos and a ring piercing.
Beevers said that he’d finished work at Manchester Airport and was heading home when he decided to stop in Buckstones car park to look at hang gliders, something he said he’d done ‘over 100 times’. He told magistrates: “There was a car parked up and I thought it was two men dressed as women.
“I didn’t know they were transgender. I thought it was funny and I was giggling to myself.
“They didn’t look very convincing, they looked like men and I thought it was funny.”
Beevers said he parked up and went and sat on the fence, still giggling to himself. He said he kept having a look at the women but denied touching himself.
He denied going to the area to engage in consensual sex even though he told police that he believed there was a dogging site close by.
Magistrates found him guilty of intentionally exposing his genitals to cause alarm or distress.
Chairwoman of the bench Anthea Ainley said they found both witnesses to be credible and may not have noticed his tattoos or piercing due to their understandable shock.
She said of Beevers: “There’s higher culpability as the defendant has demonstrated hostility towards the victims based on their transgender identity.”
An all options probation report, including custody, was ordered ahead of Beevers’ sentencing on October 24.