A flasher from Highbury who exposed himself on a packed tube train through his ripped trousers claimed he was on his way to get them sewn up.

Abbas Haidara, 25, from Aberdeen Park, alarmed passengers by showing off his private parts at King’s Cross Station.

Police found Haidara sitting down, with his legs akimbo and his genitals still ‘clearly on show’.

He was wearing tracksuit bottoms, but they were open at the seam and he had no underwear on, Westminster Magistrates Court heard on December 3.

Haidara sat in the dock with a tee-shirt over his head as prosecutor Kate Shilton said; “Officers were called to reports of a male exposing his genitalia on a train and arrived to find the defendant facing the wall with a tee shirt covering the lower part of his face.

“He had a pair of tracksuit bottoms on but they were open all the way up the seam and he was not wearing any underwear, sitting on the train with his legs open and his genitalia clearly on show.

“Haidara was arrested and said he was on his way to a mosque at Baker Street to get money to get his trousers repaired.

“He said they were ripped and he did not mean to cause any distress to anyone around him.”

Nathan Seymour-Hyde, defending, said: “My client suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and gets attached to certain items of clothing.

“He said with this pair of trousers, the seam had been broken for some time but he felt a bond with them and could not part with them.”

Magistrates handed Haidara a three month conditional discharge.