A TEACHER who paraded around his back garden performing lewd acts while using a penis pump has been put on a sex offenders’ treatment programme.
Ian Lavender, 46, was given a three-year community order after admitting to repeatedly exposing himself to neighbours while in a state of arousal at his house over a five-year period.
Mr Lavender who taught at Bishop Stopford School, Kettering,Northants, would walk around his garden picking flowers, sitting on the fence and perform a sex act, Northampton Crown Court heard on Monday.
Tim Brown, prosecuting, said Mr Lavender, a short balding man with glasses, would sometimes have a sexual apparatus and was apparently always in a state of arousal.
“He, from about 2005, began engaging in a strange form of activity,” said Mr Brown.
“He took to being in his garden, naked, observed by a neighbour.”
The neighbours in the quiet cul-de-sac in The Downs, Wellingborough, failed to raise their concerns with Lavender or make an official complaint until July 3 last year, the court was told.
One neighbour became “seriously upset and worried” five days later when seeing father-of-two Lavender lie on top of his child’s climbing frame using the apparatus so the neighbour called the police.
When officers arrived at the front door, they observed that Lavender was apparently still in a state of arousal, the court was told.
A pre-sentence report on Lavender suggested he may have attention deficit disorder or Asperger’s syndrome and failed to understand the impact of his actions on others, the court heard.
Adrian Langdown, mitigating, said Lavender’s problems originated from his low self-esteem. He also pointed out that the garden had a high fence and hedges and suggested that Lavender could only be seen from one window of one house.
Lavender’s wife, a Christian, has supported him throughout the case, despite him being banned from the family home until May, the court heard.
The couple have attended a Christian retreat in Sussex called “the truth about relationships” in a bid to help Lavender tackle his problem.
Judge Charles Wide QC said: “It’s plain that you are in the great majority a very good man. But you do have a significant difficulty and it has manifested itself in a sexual way.”
Bishop Stopford School were unavailable for comment.
