A 33-year-old bus passenger ran his fingers up and down a woman’s thighs, Magistrates’ Court was told yesterday.

The trial of the Southampton resident — charged with invading the privacy of a female on a bus — began with the woman taking the stand to recount events on July 1 last year.

Neither the defendant nor the woman can be identified for legal reasons.

Yesterday the woman told the court how she felt like she was being “assaulted” as she rode the bus.

She said she was travelling from Somerset to Hamilton on a #7 bus at 1.30 p.m. when a man got on in Southampton and sat next to her.

The man told her he was interested in photography, asked her if she modelled and if she was interested in modelling for him. She replied no.

The woman said: “At that point I made a call to my friend on my cell phone and we were talking about the game.

“There was an FA Cup match on. The gentleman seemed restless. He sort of eased up to reach into his pocket on his right side, my left.

“He brushed up against me. I could feel his hand in his pocket against me. There isn’t much space on the seats, so I didn’t think anything of it.

“I was still on the phone when he crossed his arms across his body and that’s when I felt his fingers running up and down on my left side, in my thigh area.”

The woman then jumped out of her seat asking him “what the hell are you doing?” She went to the front of the bus, told the driver what happened and he called the Police.

When the bus stopped in the bus depot across from the Bermuda College the driver opened the door and the woman, the man and the bus driver all exited.

The man then tried to run away only to be spotted 15 minutes later on a second #7 bus by the alleged victim. She flagged down the bus and the man was ordered off.

However, before the Police arrived, the man managed to run away for a second time.

On the stand yesterday, the woman said she saw the same person a few days later at the same bus stop while she was on the express #7 bus.

Because her express bus did not stop for him, she said she exited the bus at Crow Lane and waited for the next #7 bus. When she got on the bus she spotted the same man, called the Police and followed the man to his work place with an officer, who then informed the man he was being arrested.

In court the alleged victim identified the defendant as the man she had followed from the bus and whom the Police arrested at his work place last year.

The woman finished her testimony and will be cross-examined on April 3.