A SERIAL sex attacker, branded a public danger by psychiatrists, pounced on five women in Bradford city centre.

Haroon Rashid molested his victims, aged between 19 and 35, in daylight in the space of 45 minutes, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Rashid, 29, was wanted by the police at the time for indecently exposing himself to a bus driver at Bradford Interchange a little more than a fortnight before.

As he did so he asked: "Can you see my pass?" to the alarm of the male driver and a woman passenger who witnessed the incident.

The court heard yesterday that Rashid, of Harris Street, Little, Germany, Bradford, was a dangerous paranoid schizophrenic who had sexually abused eight women in Bradford in the past decade.

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In 2004, he was locked up for four years for three offences of indecent assault, including dragging a terrified 13-year-old girl into a churchyard on Killinghall Road.

He grabbed her from behind, put his hand over her mouth and told her not to scream.When she asked if he was going to rape her and told him she had asthma, he punched her in the face and ran off.

Another woman was groped when she was in a knee brace and the third screamed when Rashid approached from behind and rubbed up against her.

Prosecutor David McGonigal told the court yesterday that Rashid exposed himself to the bus driver at 6.30am on June 10 last year. The incident was caught on CCTV and a police appeal for information was later published in the Telegraph & Argus.

On June 27, Rashid sexually assaulted five women in Bradford city centre, between 11.30am and 12.15pm.

Most of his victims were seized from behind and molested.

Mr McGonigal said Rashid shrugged and sniggered after grabbing a 24-year-old woman's bottom.

When she challenged him, saying: "How dare you touch me like that," he mumbled at her.

Rashid attacked three more women in quick succession, putting his hand up one's skirt and grabbing the others by the buttocks and thigh, before he was detained by a teenage girl's boyfriend. He had grabbed her crotch on Vicar Lane in full view of her partner.

Rashid was volatile and aggressive at the police station, displaying signs of mental illness.

His barrister, Jo Shepherd, said he had since been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic by two forensic psychiatrists who said he posed a risk of serious harm to the public.

Rashid, who sat in the dock in a black hooded coat, was flanked by four staff members from Newton Lodge hospital where he is being treated.

Judge David Hatton QC made a Hospital Order under the Mental Health Act with a Section 41 restriction order.

"You suffer from a mental disorder, namely paranoid schizophrenia, and will be detained in hospital for medical treatment," he told Rashid.

He also ordered him to sign on the sex offender register for life.