A creepy barber who terrorised three women during a year-long campaign of harassment has been locked up.

Orhan Idriz was fixated with blonde women, telling police he was interested in them as there were none in his home country of Bulgaria.

The 38-year-old, of St Luke’s Avenue, Maidstone, hounded two of his victims on trains between Maidstone West and Strood on numerous occasions between December and January.

He boarded the services and stared at the women between the seats, grunting at them, looking up one woman’s skirt and flicking chewed-up balls of newspaper at the other.

On one occasion he pursued his sobbing victim as she fled down the carriage, even though she was accompanied by a ticket inspector who she had begged for help. His behaviour culminated in him being banned from the nation’s railways.

Idriz, who works at Jacob’s Barbers and Tanning Salon, in Mill Street, became infatuated with a customer and launched a year-long onslaught of unwanted attention, offering her free treatment and staring at her in the changing rooms.

The victim, who described Idriz’s behaviour as creepy, stopped visiting the shop, but he tracked her down, approaching her in Week Street and going to her place of work, watching her and loitering outside until the end of her shift.

On each occasion she told him to leave her alone but the incidents only stopped when police got involved and arrested Idriz after reports he pestered her on a night out.

After his release, Idriz breached bail conditions when he messaged her via social network Facebook.

But despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Idriz insisted the accusations were made up.

After a two-day trial last month, where the three victims were allowed to give evidence from behind screens, he was found guilty of three counts of harassment without violence.

This week, magistrates sentenced Idriz to 180 days in prison, imposed a continuous restraining order banning him from contacting his victims and travelling on trains between Maidstone West and Strood and ordered him to pay £1,280.

No compensation order was made, with the chairman of the bench saying they could not quantify the extremes of the victims’ suffering.