A serial flasher who suffered multiple fractures when he was attacked by angry neighbours for exposing himself at a seven-year-old girl has been jailed for four years.

Paul Smith, 56, who had 108 previous convictions for sexual offences, picked the wrong area when he struck again in Barkerend, Bradford, after travelling to the city from his Lancashire home by train with his bicycle.

Smith was banned from riding on trains with his push bike after pedalling around various locations over the decades exposing himself, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.

His first conviction for flashing was in 1972 and he had only recently been released from jail after serving six years for repeated similar offending.

The court heard that the child was shocked and upset and ran to tell her family when Smith exposed himself at her from only about a metre away as she played in her garden on July 24 last year.

He was chased by outraged neighbours and pushed off his bike, sustaining fractured ribs and a broken collar bone, pelvis and wrist.

He spent ten days in hospital and his bicycle was never recovered, his barrister, Jeremy Hill-Baker, told the court.

Mr Hill-Baker said Smith was pedalling around Bradford not intending to expose himself but he took a short cut and “lost control of the situation”.

He told the police he “wanted to be noticed”.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said it was deeply offensive behaviour that caused deep-seated and devastating damage to the victims.

“You came to the wrong area because you so, quite rightly, inflamed the members of the community here that they hunted you down,” he told Smith, of Gorton Fold, Bolton.

“You are a dangerous man and cause, for your depraved satisfaction, great harm to children.”

He warned Smith he would be shown no mercy if he appeared before a court in Bradford again.

The girl’s father, who cannot be named to protect her identity, has told the Telegraph & Argus how he made a citizen’s arrest when Smith targeted his daughter.

He described how he and neighbours gave chase and said he had to stop a “lynch mob” from setting about Smith while waiting for the police to arrive.