Shamed agent is banned from industry

The estate agent who was sent to jail after he admitted sexually assaulting a teenage girl as she walked home after a night out has been banned from estate agency work by the Office of Fair Trading.

The prohibition order is against Simon Bews, 43, a former director of a Winkworth franchise in Lincolnshire.

Bews, a married father of three,  was initially sentenced at Lincoln Crown Court to three-and-a-half years in prison, but this was recently cut to 18 months on appeal.

Mike Haley, OFT director of Consumer Protection Group, said: “Estate agents who have been convicted of offences of violence are likely to be banned by the OFT.

“While this offence was not committed during the course of estate agency work, the OFT will act robustly to protect the interests and safety of consumers.”

Bews, of Sleaford, Lincolnshire, was jailed after he followed the 17-year-old and then grabbed her bottom and put his hand over her mouth in November 2007.

He dragged her into the middle of the road but ran off when her boyfriend approached. At his appeal, his barrister successfully argued that it was not known what would have happened had the boyfriend not intervened, that nothing more might have happened and that therefore the original sentence was too long.