A NEIGHBOUR accused of indecent exposure claims his shocked victim mistook a novelty rubber replica for his real penis.

A jury at Bolton Crown Court has to decide if 52-year-old Eric Parton was playing a prank on a neighbour with a fake penis or whether he indecently exposed himself to her.

He claims the rubber penis was bought by a friend in Spain.

Several times the jury were shown CCTV footage of the incident, taken from cameras on the neighbour's home in Harwood, on the evening on October 20 last year.

A rubber novelty penis was then passed around for them to view in a clear plastic bag.

Several jurors appeared to be stifling smirks.

Giving evidence, the neighbour told prosecution counsel Brian McKenna that relations between her family and Parton, who lives in the adjoining semi-detached property, have not been good.

But on Sunday October 20 at 9.30pm, when she went upstairs to close her bedroom curtains, she looked out of the window and saw Parton on his drive next to a parked van.

“He had his penis in his hand and was waving it around,” she said.

“I was shocked, obviously,” she said, adding that her husband Carl ran out of the house after Parton as he drove off.

She stated that Parton had looked directly at her as he committed the act and denied suggestions by defence barrister Mark Friend that she could have been mistaken in thinking the penis was real.

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Mr Friend, stressing that it was dark at the time of the incident, told the neighbour that Parton admits pulling something out of his fly, but it was not his penis.

“I suggest it was something else and I’m going to show you what it was,” Mr Friend told her.

He produced a clear bag containing a rubber novelty penis which was examined by the witness and members of the jury.

But the neighbour said that was not what she had seen.

“He whipped it out of his pants. I was in no doubt it was his penis,” she stated, adding that, unlike the replica she was shown in court, it had been “flopping about.”

“It is shocking - you don’t expect to be shutting your bedroom curtains and see your next door neighbour flashing his genitals at you. It’s disgusting. It made me feel sick,” she said.

The incident was reported to police.

PC David Heald told the court he interviewed Parton on November 18, during which the defendant gave him a prepared statement claiming a friend, Roy Griffiths, had bought a novelty penis in Spain and he had borrowed it to show another friend before returning it to its owner.

But PC Heald said Parton became evasive when he asked for addresses and phone numbers of the friends and repeated requests for the defendant to produce the novelty item before the trial were unsuccessful.

When the rubber penis was passed to PC Heald in court, he declined to touch it.

The trial continues on Monday.