A PANTY-LINE pervert who was seen filming girls' bottoms as he followed them around a supermarket cried with relief when he avoided prison.

And Adrian Grocott was tracked down by police because he used his Tesco loyalty card as he checked out of the store.

Blackburn magistrates heard cropped images of the teenage girls’ behinds were later uploaded onto a website called visible panty-​line.

Grocott, 55, of Holcombe Road, Helmshore, pleaded guilty to outraging public decency by filming the girls on his phone and two charges of possessing extreme pornographic images.

The married man, who broke down in tears when magistrates said they were not sending him to prison, was made subject to a community order for 18 months with 20 days’ rehabilitation, fined £750 with £85 costs and £85 victim surcharge.

Andy Robinson, prosecuting, said after he had been arrested for the Tesco offence devices owned by Grocott were seized and the extreme images found.

The girls, aged around 13 or 14, were in Tesco in Rawtenstall on a Sunday afternoon.

Staff became suspicious of the way Grocott appeared to be following them and had his phone out.

After he was identified from his loyalty card Grocott’s details were passed to the police.

“None of the girls involved have been identified so clearly they were not distressed by his behaviour as they didn’t appear to be aware of it,” said Mr Robinson.

When he was interviewed Grocott admitted taking photographs of women’ bottoms when they had visible panty-lines showing through their clothing and then uploading them onto a web site by the same name.

He said two of the images from the Tesco store had been accepted and published on the site. He admitted viewing other people’s pictures on the site. The extreme pornographic images showed extreme bondage with nude females.

“There was clearly a sexual motivation behind the taking of the visible panty-line photographs,” said Mr Robinson.

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John Rusius, defending, said his client was a married, family man with no previous convictions.

“He is disgusted with himself and accepts full responsibility for everything,” said Mr Rusius. He said Grocott stumbled across the extreme pornographic images and had not looked at them again.