Nicholas Read, an actor who appeared in the Harry Potter and Star Wars films, was given a 20-week suspended jail term for indecently exposing himself to a 17-year-old girl on a train, reports Daily Mail.

The 40-year-old former pantomime actor, was convicted of indecent exposure last month after a 17-year-old girl told Leicester Crown court how Read performed an indecent act under a juggler's hat on a train between London and Leicester last October.

Read was arrested in October after he blocked his victim in a window seat and then performed a sex act under the cover of his hat.

"I looked in the reflection of the window and saw his hand moving under the hat. He tried to catch my attention, tilting his hat up, looking at his crotch area and then looking at me a few times," the female victim told the court, stated the report.

The young girl was too mortified to complain immediately but alerted a British Transport Police officer after she got off the train. Read was arrested when he disembarked the train at Sheffield.

While passing the sentence, Recorder Richard Bond showed Read mercy despite the actor's previous sexual offence convictions. Read's 20-week suspended jail term would have to be supervised by the Probation Service. He also has to undertake a community sex offender group work program and pay £500 towards the cost of his prosecution.

"I have to ask myself this question: Is this a case where not just you, but more importantly, the public would benefit from you receiving a short custodial sentence? The answer to that is no," Bond said in suspending the jail sentence.

Read's previous convictions included a series of "random" and explicit phone calls made to women from a hotel room in 1995 and an incident in which he climbed into the bed of a stage manager and his girlfriend.

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