A dad told how he carried out a citizen’s arrest when a serial sex offender who flashed at his seven-year-old daughter crashed his bike into a tree fleeing the scene.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his child, described how he and neighbours gave chase after 55-year-old Paul Smith exposed himself to the girl and a young friend in an incident caught on CCTV outside his Bradford home.

Speaking as Smith pleaded guilty to an offence of exposure and breaching a Sexual Offences Prevention Order at Bradford and Keighley Magistrates’ Court yesterday, the dad said he had to stop a “lynch mob” from attacking the flasher as they waited for the police to arrive.

He gave chase when his crying daughter had told him about the attack.

“People were attacking him and wanted to kill him,” he said.

Prosecutor James Weekes told magistrates how Smith, who has “repeatedly” been convicted of gross indecency and exposure offences, approached the man’s daughter and a friend as they played in their garden in the Barkerend area of the city.

The Court heard Smith, of Gorton Fold, Bolton, Lancashire, had been the subject of a number of Sexual Offences Prevention Orders banning him from loitering around women he doesn’t know and travelling on a train with a bicycle.

He pleaded guilty to the two offences by video link and was remanded in custody until his next appearance at Bradford Crown Court on January 20.