KINGSTON, Ont. -- An aggressive flasher from the Brockville area, who prowled neighbourhoods around Queen's University's campus from June until November last year, targeting young Asian women, has been sentenced to six months in jail and placed on probation for three years.

Jason Brown, 33, pleaded guilty in Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice Friday, to five counts of committing an indecent act and one count of criminal harassment involving five victims.

He'd already spent 77 days in pretrial custody.

Assistant Crown attorney Janet O'Brien told Justice Judith Beaman that Brown approached the women in the late afternoon and evening, generally pulling his car over on a pretext of seeking directions to Princess Street. When the women approached to offer help they'd discover that he was masturbating.

On one occasion in June, however, the judge was told his victim didn't immediately discern what he was up to when he stopped her on Lower Union Street. O'Brien said Brown gestured with his free hand until the woman looked down and when she recoiled and fled, Brown stalked her in his car, causing her considerable anxiety.

He only left the area, Beaman heard, after his victim sought safety in a group of students.

His determination that she look at him had occasioned her to notice what turned out to be an important detail, however: She'd noticed what appeared to be a silver ornament inserted through a piercing in Brown's penis.

In September, Brown pulled up beside another woman walking on Frontenac Street at 4:30 p.m., according to O'Brien, and used the same ruse of asking directions to Princess Street. Then, in vulgar and self-aggrandizing terms, he demanded to know whether she'd noticed his penis.

At first, O'Brien said the woman thought she'd misheard him, but Brown repeated himself, at which point the woman responded "no" and walked away from him. Though trying to appear calm, she was actually badly shaken, according to O'Brien, and became more upset when Brown followed her for some distance in his car.

In October, he pulled alongside yet another woman on Union Street and asked her: "Do you think my car is cool?" and she later told police when she looked over she realized he was shaking his penis at her.

Brown returned to his ruse of asking directions later that month with yet another young woman he found walking on MacDonnell Street around 7:30 p.m. According to O'Brien, when that victim tried to get away from him he not only followed her in his car, but harass her verbally, yelling at her that she should perform oral sex on him and ranting, "I know you want a piece of me."

Ultimately, O'Brien said Brown crossed paths with one of his victims a second time, while prowling in the MacDonnell and Hill streets area in November,

She immediately recognized his car, Beaman was told, and tried to prevent Brown finding out where she lived by pretending to enter a neighbouring house. When she thought it was safe, Beaman was told the woman made a dash for her own address, only to discover that Brown was still lurking.

The judge was told that he pulled up and parked in front of his victim's house, intimidating her with his presence. She managed to note part of his licence number.

O'Brien said an advisory was put out to police and Brown was actually stopped and questioned by OPP in Prescott on Nov. 6 He told them he was on his way to Kingston and they let him go.

It wasn't until the following day that he was arrested, the prosecutor told Beaman, after he turned up on campus again and campus security notified Kingston Police.

When told what he was charged with, she said he responded, "that's funny," but eventually admitted to asking directions from an Asian female in late October and that he might have been masturbating under his shirt at the time. He later went on to admit that he might have been masturbating on other occasions when he spoke to Asian women, but Brown denied targeting the women.

O'Brien said he told police, "he had urges and this was how he took care of them."

In the course of that police interview, the prosecutor disclosed that an officer asked Brown if there was anything unusual about his penis and that Brown said there wasn't. Later, however, O'Brien said the man was observed sliding his hand down the front of his pants, as if to retrieve something. When he was directed to show whatever it was he'd palmed, it turned out to be a silver ornament for a body piercing

Brown's defence lawyer, Brian Callender, tried to convince Beaman to sentence his client to time served and probation.

"He's very sorry for what he did," Callender told the judge. "He knows what he did was wrong. He knows he needs treatment and he didn't intend to hurt anyone."

O'Brien asked that Brown be jailed an additional seven months, observing that his behaviour was aggravated by his multiple victims and the five-month span of his crimes.

"They only stopped because he was arrested," she noted. "He had plenty of time to realize what he was doing was wrong."

She also observed that Brown didn't simply flash his victims and leave. She told the judge it was particularly disturbing that "on a number of occasions, he made sexual advances and turned his vehicle to follow the victims as they fled."

She argued that he should spend sufficient time in jail so that, "at minimum" a full assessment of his sexual proclivities can be done to assist probation in dealing with him.

O'Brien noted that Brown has a prior conviction from 1998, when he was 19, for sexual interference with a 13-year-old girl. She also pointed out to Beaman that the women he was pursuing last year were all "smaller built adult Asian women."

Brown told Beaman "I want to go for therapy," and claimed that he asked for therapy right after his arrest because "I know I've done something wrong."

"That's a first step," Beaman said, "(but) it takes more than that," and he needs to feel empathy for his victims.

She also observed that his criminal behaviour appears to be escalating. "These behaviours were flagrant," Beaman observed. "They were fully open to the public. You didn't care if you were seen."

She ordered him, when he's completed his jail sentence, to cooperate with any assessment, treatment or counselling for sexual offending and substance abuse directed by his probation supervisor .

Beaman also prohibited Brown from using street drugs, barred him from being in the company of anyone under 18 without a responsible adult present, and ordered him not to enter the campus of any university or educational facility.

Additionally, she imposed a 10-year order under the Criminal Code that prohibits Brown from being in parks, playgrounds and other places where children under 14 could reasonably be expected to congregate and from working or volunteering in any capacity that would place him in a position of trust or authority over anyone under 14.

He's also required to be included for 10 years on the Sex Offender Information Registry.