A man who sexually abused a teenage schoolgirl on a bus has been jailed for 23 months.
Alex Dale approached the 15 year-old and showed her explicit messages as they travelled through Barry last October.
Just two days later, he grabbed and pushed a 11 year-old girl to the floor as she was walking her dog near Cardiff Golf Club.
South Wales Police said the 32 year-old from Adamsdown, who pleaded guilty, was caught via facial recognition technology.
CCTV footage, released by the force, showed him fleeing the scene of the second assault on a footpath in Cyncoed.
Newport Crown Court heard detectives had sourced footage from the bus where he had approached his first victim on 23rd October 2024.
Further enquiries revealed he had used a mobile phone app, linked to his e-mail address, to buy his bus fare.
Using retrospective facial recognition, which compares still images of faces of unknown people against a reference image database, detectives were able to arrest and charge Dale within a week.
In court, he admitted sexual assault and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.
Dale was also given a sexual harm prevention order for ten years, banning him from any unauthorised or unsupervised contact with under 18s.
Following sentencing on Wednesday, Detective Constable Emma Partridge from South Wales Police said: "Both victims have been incredibly brave to share what happened to them and support the investigation."
"Dale’s actions continue to have a huge impact on their day to day lives including feeling vulnerable on public transport and walking alone."
"I hope today’s sentencing brings the girls some comfort and allows them to regain their confidence to move forward."
"Everyone has the right to feel safe, wherever they are, and South Wales Police does everything possible to keep communities safe and ensure people feel safe when going about their everyday business."
"Stranger incidents like that are very unusual, but when they do happen, we use all available technology and traditional policing methods to bring offenders to justice."
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