A man who groped a teenager's bottom as Prince Charles laid a wreath of flowers at the Cenotaph has escaped jail.

As BBC cameras rolled, former chicken plucker Phillip Lowe, 46, rubbed himself against a startled visitor in the Remembrance Day crowds.

Lowe, of Grafton Street, Brighton, tickled the young man under his arms and put his hands down the 18-year-old's trousers, Southwark Crown Court heard.

Lowe, a former civil servant, molested the teenager for an hour before his victim fled.

The court heard Lowe, originally from Chichester, travelled to London from his Sussex home.

He spotted his dark-haired victim, who was visiting from Norwich, and struck up a conversation about mobile phone games.

He then quizzed the teenager about his personal life and the pair bonded when he told Lowe he worked in a chicken factory.

The court heard university-educated Lowe, now a car park attendant at Gatwick airport, then fondled the youth's buttocks until the shocked teenager rushed to a police officer.

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court: "It went on for about an hour.

"It was only after about half an hour when he had his hands down my trousers I realised it was not accidental."

Lowe denied indecently assaulting the teenager but the jury rejected Lowe's account of November 11 last year and convicted him.

He was fined £500 yesterday and ordered to pay his victim £250.

He was also ordered to pay £400 costs.