STARTING IN THIS SUNDAY’S BRITAIN’S PUZZLE SPECIAL INCLUDING FIND THE TURTLE’S HEAD…AND WIN£ 2O,000 MASSEUR GRANDAD JAILED FOR GROPING 6 WOMEN

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A 68-YEAR-OLD masseur who groped six of his women clients sexually has been jailed for 15 months.

Grandad Malcolm Baker trained as a Swedish massage therapist after retiring as an accountant and began practising from his home two years ago, a court was told.

But soon after going into business he ignored the training he had received to keep his hands away from the sexual and abdominal areas of women and started doing whole body massages, the court heard.

Baker denied allegations by nine women clients that he had touched then sexually while they were naked or near naked on his massage table in his home in Cheltenham, Glos.

But at Gloucester Crown Court a jury convicted him of six of the charges of sexual assault but cleared him of three others,

Jailing him Judge Jamie Tabor QC said he had no doubt that one of the reasons Baker had undergone TOUCHED: Groper Baker training to be a masseur was “to gain a degree of sexual gratification”.

He said: “You massaged six women inappropriately.

“One woman was completely naked when you touched her genitalia and massaged her breasts vigorously.

“You massaged another victim to the extent that she began to feel sexually aroused despite not wishing to be so aroused.”

The judge said there aggravating features of Baker’s offences were the prolonged period over which they took place and the breach of trust the women had placed in him.

“I can think of no other occasions when a woman places herself naked or near naked in front of a nonmedically qualified man who is a complete stranger to her,” he said.

“In short, you were trusted to behave yourself and you didn’t do so.”

Handing Baker the jail sentence, the judge also ordered him to pay compensation of £500 each to the six women victims. He also ordered him to pay £500 costs.

Baker was ordered to sign the sex offender register for 10 years and was placed under as sexual harm prevention order, also for 10 years.

The judge said he should never offer massages to anyone again.

Andrew Wilkins, defending, had urged the judge not to pass a prison term, suggesting that his groping was “borderline” and at the lower end of the scale of offending.

Mr Wilkins said Baker had never suggested the women were lying, only that they could be mistaken.

After the conviction of Baker, who has a 12-year-old grandaughter, the court heard that other allegations have also been made against him – one recently.

A woman made an allegation that, while he was on bail awaiting trial, Baker had touched her bottom when she was shopping in a supermarket.