A man was caught masturbating near a primary school as he sat in his delivery van and inside a woman's back garden. Onke Mvelase, 25, of Lownorth Road, Wythenshawe, appeared at Manchester Crown Court on Thursday morning, September 15, to be sentenced for acts of outraging public decency, with four separate incidents taking place over the last year and a half.
Bob Sastry, prosecuting, told the court that on May 26, 2021, a man spotted Mvelase sitting inside his delivery van on Cavendish Road in West Didsbury, near to the Cavendish Community Primary School, and watched on in horror as he began performing a sex act on himself. When the man went into his garden, moving into Mvelase's view to try and deter him from his indecency, the delivery driver stopped his vile act before driving away in the direction of Burton Road.
Mvelase was identified after his employer at the time, DHL, confirmed he'd been driving the van spotted at the scene.
Whilst on bail, Mvelase was caught masturbating in public on three more occasions. In January this year, at around 5am, a woman was cleaning her home when she saw Mvelase stood in her garden masturbating. The horrified woman went upstairs, watching the man enter a neighbour's garden, before opening the patio doors to confront him, shouting "what are you doing?" before asking if he was "sick".
The woman was left so shaken by what she'd seen that she installed CCTV cameras on her home, and less than a month later they picked up Mvelase returning to the property, with CCTV images from February showing the man there once again. It's thought that Mvelase had been at the property two nights earlier after the woman heard a noise outside and saw a "stain" on the patio doors, which was later identified as semen by crime scene officers, with the DNA profile matching Mvelase's. The woman said she "felt scared at home" and even thought about moving after the incidents, and had been trying to forget about Mvelase before he returned to her home for a second time.
Between the two incidents, in February, Mvelase had been spotted masturbating by a young university student. She was walking to a nearby bus stop at 7.45am to get to her lectures when she heard a noise coming from the entrance to a block of flats in Fallowfield. When she turned to look for the source of the sound, she spotted Mvelase masturbating with his trousers around his ankles. Mr Sastry said the young woman was "shocked and upset" by what she'd seen, and was left "disgusted" by the defendant's actions - which had put her off wearing the same coat she had on when she spotted the act.
Mvelase was arrested on March 11 at his home in Wythenshawe, and pleaded guilty to the offence at a pre-trial hearing. He has previous convictions for common assaults dating back to June and July last year, where he squirted hand cream at women passing his delivery van in the East Lancs area. He also received a caution for exposure in February 2014, when he was just 17-years-old.
Damian Zelazowski, defending, urged Mr Recorder Long to suspend his client's sentence, as Mvelase has been in custody since his arrest in March. Granting the defence barrister's request, Recorder Long said: "In May of last year you were seen masturbating in your delivery van near a primary school on a busy street. On three occasions you were seen by members of the public to be exposing your penis and masturbating.
"A young student saw you masturbating, and one woman found you in her garden; not surprisingly she was very upset and disturbed by this contact, to the extent she installed CCTV which led to your ID and arrest. There are very serious offences and are very serious examples of this type of offending. Only the fact you've been locked up for the best part of five months allows me to take a more lenient approach."
Mvelase was sentenced to a community order for two years, requiring him to complete the Horizon project, 30 rehabilitation activity requirement days, and 180 hours of unpaid work as punishment.
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