FIRE chief George David Heyes claimed he had been running in his wellingtons after police arrested him for indecently exposing himself.

Blackburn magistrates heard that a woman was walking her dog round remote Entwistle reservoir when a man emerged from behind a tree with his trousers round his ankles.

The court was told that she screamed at the ginger haired flasher before ringing the police on her mobile phone and giving chase as she spoke to them.

Heyes, 43, of Bamburgh Close, Ratcliffe, Bury, an acting assistant divisional officer with the Greater Manchester fire service, pleaded not guilty to indecently exposing himself on December 7.

After hearing the case for the prosecution, the magistrates adjourned the case until April 17 when it will be heard to a conclusion.

The woman told the court she had been walking her dog at the well known beauty spot on the morning of the incident.

As she neared the end of her circuit of the lake she saw a man standing partly behind a tree, about ten yards from her, committing an indecent act.

She told how the man turned to face her and the two of them moved towards each other.

"I was furious, screaming abuse at him and shouting for help," she said.

Eventually the man ran off, with the woman following him at the same time as giving a description over the phone to the police. The man ran off in the direction of the Strawbury Duck pub at Entwistle and the woman rang the landlord, Keith Graham, whom she knew.

She gave Mr Graham a description of the man before returning to her car.

Mr Graham said he went out of his pub and was scanning the fields when he saw a black car drive past.

The driver had ginger hair and a ginger moustache, fitting the description given by the woman.

Mr Graham and a window cleaner, who was working at the pub at the time, gave chase and eventually stopped a car being driven by Heyes on Blackburn Road, Edgworth.

Mr Graham took the car keys and Heyes returned to the pub in their car.

The court heard that police were already there and minutes later the woman arrived in her car.

She jumped out of her vehicle and ran at Heyes, calling him a sick pervert. "I was so annoyed, upset and angry, I would have slapped him if I had not been pulled away," she said.

"I had been frightened and I was angry and everything came out. I just looked at him.

"He was bright red but the colour just drained out of him when he looked at me."

Cross-examined by Michael Blacklidge, defending, the woman said there was no doubt in her mind about the identity of her tormentor.

"The man I saw that day is the man sat at the side of me now," she said, referring to Heyes.

When taken back to the pub, Heyes was wearing slippers. A pair of muddy wellingtons were later recovered from the boot of his car which he claimed he had been wearing when he went for a run.

When interviewed by detective constable John Entwistle, Heyes said he had been going to the reservoir for at least 20 years.

DC Entwistle told him the police had been looking for a ginger-haired flasher in that area for at least ten years.

Proceeding

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