A MAN was caught performing a sex act on himself while his wife was shopping in Asda.

Timothy McTighe, 51, had gone to the supermarket in Brighton Marina on Valentine’s Day.

While his wife ventured into the store, he decided to stay put in the car with the family dog.

Prosecutor Andrew Walker told Brighton Magistrates Court yesterday: “On February 14 at about midday he was in the car park at Asda, sitting in his Ford Focus.

“People were using the car park and two people saw him.”

Ed Fish, defending McTighe, of Bristol Road, Brighton, said that “one thing had simply led to another”.

He said the former carpenter had been suffering from an undiagnosed medical condition causing pins and needles and numbness in his limbs.

He added: “He went shopping with his wife in Asda.

“She went into the shop and he was in the car looking after the dog.

“While there his leg went numb.

“He’s tried to get the circulation back in his leg and it moved on to something else.

“He didn’t think anybody else would be able to see him.

“Having been told someone else had seen him he was mortified.

“He was understandably extremely embarrassed about what occurred.”

Mr Fish said that McTighe had struggled to work because of his health problems and now worked in music production.

He told the court his main income was from tax credits.

He told magistrates that he had never previously been in trouble.

Mr Fish described the incident as an “act of complete foolishness that had affected him significantly.”

McTighe admitted outraging public decency at Asda in Brighton Marina on February 14 this year.

The court heard that the crime was not considered a sexual offence as there had been no intention for anyone else to see.

He was ordered to complete 20 sessions of rehabilitation.

He was also ordered to pay £85 court costs.