A PERVERT who prompted a judge to call for urgent action after he flouted a community order by refusing medication for tuberculosis is now receiving treatment.

Shahfasal Pervez, 20, was given a three-year community punishment, after pouncing on a woman as she walked to work in Ormerod Street, Accrington, in January last year.

After being sentenced in July, it was revealed he had TB.

Probation officials said that because he was said not to be taking his medication, the order was unworkable because of the health risks.

Previously at Burnley Crown Court, Judge Beverley Lunt said Pervez was a danger and a risk to the community and called for urgent action from the authorities.

But Pervez, who is now said not to be infectious, has finally appeared before the court and agreed to have treatment.

At court he was told that he would be given until October 19 to make the sentence work and was warned that if it did not, and he continued to avoid treatment, he could go to prison.

Judge Lunt told Pervez, of Pendle Street, Accrington, she had given him the community order as he had already spent 170 days in jail for the "serious" indecent assault.

He must now go for treatment for TB three times a week at Blackburn Royal Hospital.

Richard Hunt, prosecuting for the probation service, said Pervez indecently assaulted the victim by grabbing her breast, pushing her back, and making a biting gesture towards her other breast.

He had pleaded guilty to the allegation, had no previous convictions for sex offences, and was placed on the Sex Offenders' Register for five years.

Sergey Prokofiev, for Pervez, said he had been foolish for not turning up and looking after his own health.

That was what had led him to disobey instructions from the probation service.