A man has been sent on a sex offenders' course after he groped young woman tenants after going to their homes to inspect rising damp.
Landlord Roger Lewis was branded as creepy by his victims after he touched their bottoms or breasts when he used his keys to let himself into their homes.
The 66-year-old businessman owned a portfolio of flats in North Devon and molested one tenant regularly during the seven years she lived there.
She was living on benefits and relying on housing benefit and was worried she would end up on the streets if she complained about what he was doing.
Lewis, of Middleton Road, Bideford, admitted one indecent assault and two sexual assaults and was jailed for nine months, suspended for two years and ordered to take part in a sex offenders' course as part of two years supervision.
Recorder Mr Jonathan Fuller, QC, ordered him to pay £320 costs and imposed a Sexual Offences Prevention Order banning him from visiting female tenants on his own.
He told him:"Both the women were in their mid 20s and you were their landlord. You engineered the opportunity to enter the first tenant's room and behaved in a wholly inappropriate can sexualised manner for your own gratification.
"One of your victims described you as creepy. The assaults themselves may have been at the lower end of the scale but the anger and distress you caused cannot be overlooked."
Miss Janice Eagles, prosecuting, said the first set of offences were against a young woman tenant who was vulnerable because her partner had left her and she was a single mother on benefits.
He assaulted her on a number of occasions over the seven years she lived in his flat, sometimes letting himself in before touching her breasts, legs or bottom over clothing.
Miss Eagles said he smirked during the assaults and the police were called after she told a friend of an incident when he after coming to look at a problem with damp in her bedroom.
The second woman was assaulted on one occasion when he came to inspect crumbling plaster.
She said:"He was exploiting his position as landlord and these were uninvited entries into the victims' homes. They felt trapped in their own homes and he knew he had captive victims. In one case he offended against her repeatedly."
Mr Richard Crabb, defending, said Lewis would benefit from going on a course which would challenge his old fashioned attitudes towards young women. He had thought his actions had been supportive and comforting.
He said there was no danger of further offences because his tenants all pay by standing order and he no longer visits them on his own.
He said:"He was surprised when he discovered how outdated and discriminatory his attitudes are seen to be in the modern world. He accepts his behaviour was inappropriate and disgraceful."
The lecherous landlord Rigsby was a character created by the late actor Leonard Rossiter in the 1970s sitcom Rising Damp, which is currently being repeated on multi-channel television.
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