A SEX offender who was twice jailed for following teenage girls in Swindon is back behind bars for molesting a woman in her Trowbridge home.

Stephen Charles, 54, sneaked into the young mum's house after she fell asleep on the sofa following a night out and put his hand down her leggings and inside her pants.

Charles also stalked other women and followed them in the street, which he is banned from doing by a sexual offences prevention order.

Now a judge has ruled he poses a significant risk of serious harm to the public and imposed an extended licence to his jail term as he is a dangerous offender.

Charles, convicted of underage sex in 1982, was jailed in 2004 for following a group of 15-year-old girls from Kingsdown School in Stratton.

Six years later he was jailed again for tailing a 17-year-old hairdresser as she walked to and from work and at lunch breaks, as well as bothering another shop girl with disturbing conversations about sex and violence.

At the time he had been made subject to a sexual; offences prevention order which places restrictions on his liberty.

Tessa Hingston, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court that Charles moved to Trowbridge after his last release from custody.

From March 2012 he started to harass a number of women in the area, sitting outside their houses in his car and following them in the street.

Then, in the summer of 2013, a woman who had been on a night out got home and fell asleep on the sofa downstairs.

She woke in the early hours to find Charles with his hand inside her knickers, committing a serious sexual offence.

Miss Hingston said: "She shouted... He replied 'I know you want this'."

As one of her young children came down the stairs he fled and she did not report the matter to the police for a while as she wanted to put it behind her.

Charles, formerly of Victoria Road, Swindon, but now of Shearman Street, Trowbridge, admitted trespass with intent to commit a sexual offence, sexual assault, two counts of stalking and two of breaching a SOPO.

He denied two more allegations of breaching the order relating to him talking to the unaccompanied women.

Chris Oswald, defending, said: "Abiding by the conditions of the sexual offences prevention order became particularly difficult for him.

"It is clearly an escalation to what he has done, he has pleaded guilty and that shows and element of remorse, it shows he is trying to do something about it.

"He knows he has difficulties, he knows it has to be addressed. He knows he is going to get a considerable prison sentence. He has to address the way he has come to view women."

Jailing him, Recorder John Trevaskis said: "On any assessment this must have been a terrifying experience for the victim.

"To awake in her own home to find herself being molested by you in the way she was without an expectation or belief on your behalf that your advances were in any way welcome.

"The fact she no longer feels safe in her own home, or outside, and the impact it has had on her feelings of self worth and the problems it has had in her personal life.

"This was quite clearly a serious offence. It is an offence which represents an escalation in the seriousness of your sexual offending.

"It leaves me in no doubt that you are a menace to women. You appear to harbour what I believe to be delusional fantasies of women to want your attentions, be they sexual or otherwise.

"In short what that means is I have come to the conclusion that you are a dangerous man and that you must be sentenced as such."

He imposed a seven-year jail term with a one-year extended licence and reminded him the sexual offences prevention order will remain in place.

Because he found he was a dangerous offender he will not be released until he has served two thirds of the sentence, rather than being freed at the half way point.