A SEX pest has been jailed for tricking his way into a woman’s home to indecently touch her while carrying out a free massage.

Dennis Watts told her that the treatment was a prize for her taking part in a telephone survey for his internet underwear company.

A judge was told that Watts, 56, had gone through the phone directory dialling random numbers until he got a woman to answer.

He had made 40 calls to homes in North Yorkshire before police were alerted to his activities, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Watts claimed to be carrying out research for the online lingerie firm he ran with his wife, but she knew nothing of his so-called survey.

One woman who answered – who was aged over 70 – declined the massage, and he offered her sex toys instead.

A 51-year-old was called in October 2007 and she accepted the free prize, before Watts called at her home the following week.

He claimed to be a qualified masseur, asked the woman to strip off in her bedroom and touched her indecently as he “treated”

her.

The court heard that the victim threatened to set her dogs on him unless he stopped, and was in tears when he left.

Police were called in by the son of another woman a year later when he heard about Watts’s visit to his mother’s home.

Christopher Attwooll, prosecuting, said: “Police seized a telephone directory and it was apparent he was working his way through it.

“His computer was seized and analysed and he had visited a number of pornographic websites featuring older women.”

Watts, who was living in North Yorkshire at the time, told officers he had massaged the other woman but nothing sexual happened.

It later emerged that the married grandfather was prosecuted in 1996 for making smutty remarks to strangers he rang at random.

Jim Withyman, mitigating, told Judge Peter Fox: “There is an enormous amount of embarrassment in this case coming out.

“He now realises that he has a problem with the boundaries he has with his conduct, and accepts he must seek some help for that.

“He feels greatly embarrassed by what he has done, and tells me this will never, ever happen again. Her realises this conduct must stop.”

Watts admitted one charge of sexual assault between October and December 2007. A second charge from 2008 has been left to lie on file.

He was told by Judge Fox: “It is of significance that as long ago as 1996 you were convicted of offences which are relevant to the present.”

He branded Watts as deceitful, and added: “That evidences a deep-seated, perverted sexual interest in women who are strangers to you.”

Watts, now of Bradford, was jailed for 12 months and ordered to sign on the sex offenders’ register.