An asylum seeker who escaped custody during a medical appointment after molesting two teenage girls at bus stops has been convicted of the sex crimes.

Pirouz Mofrad, 23, was captured on CCTV fleeing from the health facility in Bexhill, East Sussex, while on a Sexual Risk Order and was missing overnight in November 2025.

He was captured the next day, the Daily Mail reported.

Mofrad, originally from Iran, previously denied the sexual assault of the girls aged 14 and 15 in two separate attacks. He was found guilty by a jury at Southampton Crown Court last week and will be sentenced next month.

The Iranian national lied about his age to the 15-year-old, claiming he was a teenager despite being 20 at the time, before trying to touch her inappropriately on December 30, 2023.

His attempts during the incident, which took place at a bus stop in a city centre during the evening, left marks in her fake tan.

Mofrad, who entered the UK in 2023, then tried to touch the 14-year-old victim in the same city six weeks later on February 15, 2024.

Southampton Crown Court heard the 15-year-old girl felt 'dirty' from the incident and vomited on the way home due to nerves.

Pirouz Mofrad, 23, was found guilty by a jury at Southampton Crown Court of molesting two teenage girls at bus stops

While in custody, Mofrad lied to the police and claimed he was a teenager still at 'school' - despite giving a date of birth which showed his accurate age of 20 years old.

Mofrad was living in a hotel in Horley in Surrey at the time of the offence, which was used to house asylum seekers.

Prosecutor Matthew Lawson told the court last week that Mofrad tried to touch a 15-year-old girl on the bottom while they were at a bus stop, and was only stopped because she moved out of the way.

In the second incident, which took place six weeks later, he tried to grab a 14-year-old's waist or bottom. He was stopped after the victim's friend pulled her out of his reach.

The court was shown a video-recorded interview in which the 15-year-old told the police what had happened to her.

The victim said that she had been shopping with a friend, and they were waiting at a bus stop in the early evening when Mofrad approached them.

Mr Lawson said: 'He began staring at the girls and began talking inappropriately to them.

'[The girls] told him their ages and told him to go away, but instead he told [the victim] he wanted to touch her and it's okay if nobody knew about it.

The asylum seeker was captured on CCTV fleeing from the health facility in Bexhill, East Sussex, in November 2025

'He then grabbed her arm but her [friend] was able to pull her away.'

The victim told police: 'He was saying come with me, come home so that I can touch you.'

She said that he grabbed her arm, leaving marks in her fake tan.

'He was mimicking my body on him, if you know what I mean,' she said.

The girl demonstrated him gesturing to his crotch and his chest, and said this made her feel 'dirty'.

The victim then began secretly recording Mofrad, and in the video the girls could be seen telling him how old they were, and claiming that it was illegal for him to talk to them.

He told them that the law 'should go away', adding that he was 'also teenager'.

The 15-year-old told the police that Mofrad was not being filmed when he subsequently told her that keeping their interaction 'secret is fine, if no one knows' and that was when he 'tried to grab [her] bum'.

After this happened, the girl said she started crying and spoke about calling the police.

She said: 'The bus came and I said that I was about to call the police and as I said that, he heard me say that I was going to call the police on him, and he ran across the road and disappeared.'

She said that the incident lasted between 20 and 25 minutes.

Her mum called the police when she got home.

Giving evidence in court, her mum said her daughter was 'shaky' and 'panicky' when she got home, and was so anxious that night that she 'physically vomited'.

The girl also told her mum 'how scared she was to go out again'.

On what Mofrad told police, Mr Lawson said: 'He told police that he was 15 himself and he was 15 because he went to school.

'When police pointed out that he had given them [his date of birth], he then suggested [the 15-year-old victim] was more than 18.'

Following this, he denied being at the scene, and there could have been someone else there using his name.

After he was shown the footage taken by one of the girls, he told police that 'since he had come to the UK two years previously, he had had problems with his memory'.

Mofrad later accepted that he was at the scene of both the incidents, but denied trying to touch the girls in any way.

He will be sentenced on August 13, 2026.