AN 81-year-old man has been warned he could be jailed after being found guilty of inciting a teenager to engage in sexual activity.

Blackburn magistrates heard that Alexander Heward approached the 14-year-old boy in the town’s Morrisons and made a lewd suggestion.

Heward, of Dickinson Close, Blackburn, left before security guards could detain him but the youngster spotted him two months later standing outside a town centre bookies.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court that he was in Morrisons on May 30 looking for a birthday card when Heward approached him from behind.

He told the boy he had a “nice tight” backside and then left. He returned a few seconds later and said: “Would you be interested in letting me feel it for £20.”

The boy said he was “shocked” by what the man had said and went and reported the incident to a security guard.

“I told him the man was about 80 years old and he was shocked by that,” said the boy.

On July 31 the boy was walking through town with a friend when he saw Heward stood outside the David Pluck bookmakers shop on Northgate. He told his friend who it was and phoned his mum who was in Marks and Spencer and pointed him out to her as well.

Cross examined by Ian Huggan, defending, the boy denied the person he had identified to police was the man he had seen outside the bookies and not the man he had seen in Morisons.

“I didn’t see him for long in Morisons but it was long enough to recognise him,” he said.

Heward maintained he had not been in Morisons and it had simply been a case of mistaken identity.

He was warned that all options would be open to the sentencing bench after he was convicted.