A teenager, caught performing a sex act in a supermarket car park, has been given a ticking off by a judge.

Judge Simon James told Ryan Davies: “There is a time and place for everything..but there is little doubt that the middle of the day in a Tesco car park was entirely unsuitable for what a jury decided you were doing!”

Davies, of Weaver Way, Dover has been convicted at Canterbury Crown Court of exposure. He had denied the offence which happened in October last year.

The 19-year-old has now been given a 12-month community order and ordered to do 100 hours of unpaid work for the community.

But the judge ruled that Davies would not have to sign the sex offenders' register – and, because of the community punishment, details of his offence will very soon be spent.

Davies had told the jury that he had become bored with shopping at the Tesco supermarket in Margate and had decided to scratch himself as he sat in the car.

“It seems to me the stigma of your conviction and the ordeal of these proceedings will have a significant and marked deterrent effect on you" - Judge Simon James

But he was spotted by a woman putting on her make-up in her vehicle who reported him for pleasuring himself as she sat nearby.

The judge told him: “What you did was not only witnessed by, but directed at, a complete stranger, who quite understandably found the whole incident distressing.

“Instead of turning your obvious embarrassment in being caught literally with your trousers down, into an early admission and an apology, you sought to try and justify your conduct.

“That resulted in your victim having to re-live the experience by giving evidence. In my opinion you were clearly masturbating in public.”

The judge said sentencing guidelines recommended jail – but told Davies, whose parents were sat in the public gallery, that because of his age and lack of maturity he wouldn’t send him to prison.

He added: “It seems to me the stigma of your conviction and the ordeal of these proceedings will have a significant and marked deterrent effect on you.”

We have been asked to make it clear this story does not refer to the former Kent cricketer, Ryan Davies.