FLASHER BLAMED ‘TWIN BROTHER’

PORCH-LOITERING PERVERT AVOIDS JAIL SENTENCE

A porch-loitering pervert who performed a sex act in front of a schoolchild has avoided jail.

When a witness caught Marcus Dalby in the act he ran inside his Ashford home shouting “it wasn’t me it was my twin brother”.

Now the 27-year-old, who previously attacked a teenager, will likely be jailed if he’s discovered naked in public again.

The flasher, of Maypits in South Ashford, was handed a two-year community order at Canterbury Crown Court after admitting indecent exposure.

A judge spared Dalby jail, ruling the public would better be served if he was rehabilitated, rather than imprisoned at taxpayer’s expense.

A witness chased Dalby inside his Maypits address after catching him with his trousers around his ankles, the court heard.

The sex pest locked the door prompting the witness to shout “If that was my child I would be knocking down your door,” to which Dalby replied: “It wasn’t me it was my twin brother.”

When the witness went to console the troubled child Dalby could be seen fleeing the address.

Dalby gave a no comment police interview following his arrest days after the incident in 2019, with the child telling officers his actions made her “feel uncomfortable”.

In 2015 Dalby was sentenced to eight months in a Youth Offenders’ Institute after sexually assaulting a child in an alley.

However, he court heard another witness claimed Dalby had been performing sex acts on his doorstep daily.

However the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case after the witness moved abroad, the court heard.

Judge Rupert Lowe said if the facts of the dismissed case are correct, Dalby’s latest lurid forays are “only the tip of the iceberg.”

“Given your background and given other information about you, this is concerning behaviour and it must stop,” he told Dalby.

“And if it doesn’t stop or hasn’t stopped you will simply be going to prison and potentially staying there for a long period of time.

“If you don’t do what you are told you will be brought back on a breach and sent to prison instead.

“You are not to be naked or to be naked in a public place or exposing genitals in a public place.”

He handed Dalby a two-year community order, 35 rehabilitation days and an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

The rehabilitation will provide Dalby, who has learning difficulties, a programme to help address his offending.

Nick Whitehorn, his barrister, told the court Dalby pleaded guilty at an early opportunity.

‘Given your background and given other information about you, this is concerning behaviour and it must stop...’

Judge Rupert Lowe

■ For more Ashford court stories, turn to page 10 or visit our website at www.kentonline.co.uk/ashford

Marcus Dalby leaving Canterbury Crown Court; he performed the sex act from his front porch in Maypits, South Ashford, in 2019