Sex crimes Star Wars dwarf now works as a sleazy Santa

A DWARF who played an Ewok in Star Wars before being axed over a string of sexual offences now works as a sleazy Santa Claus.

A DWARF who played an Ewok in Star Wars and a goblin in Harry Potter before being booted out of movies for a string of sex offences now works as a sleazy Santa Claus.

Nicholas Read, 45, dresses up to kiss women at club nights and works for a firm which cuffs hen parties to its escorts.

The dad of one recently opened a hair salon in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, with Katie Price.

In 2011 Read was given a suspended jail sentence for indecently exposing himself to a girl, 17, while fondling himself under a juggler’s hat on a train.

He had been travelling north from London after judging a croquet competition where he had drunk half a bottle gin, the Telegraph reported.

Read with an innocent party girl.

Feeling “merry”, he sat beside the teenager.

“He placed his hat on his crotch. I saw a movement and I was a bit shocked,” the girl told the court.

“His hat tilted towards me, lifted, so I could see, but blocking the aisle. He tried to catch my attention tilting his hat up, looking at his crotch area and then looking at me a few times.”

The girl reported the incident — which went on for between 30 to 40 minutes — to transport police and he was arrested when he disembarked.

For hire ... Read with Katie Price.

A year later he was given a 16-week suspended sentence for another flashing incident, in which he drunkenly exposed himself to two female medical students on a train to Manchester, and then took a picture of her friend’s horrified reaction on his mobile phone.

In handing down that sentence, the judge said Read had “been making real progress” in a community sex offender rehabilitation group.

“You have been very frank and straightforward and in the past often denied what you have done,” the Daily Mail reported Judge Robert Thomas QC as saying.

“You are now finally facing up to the difficulties you face. I’m not going to disrupt that progress by sending you to prison for only a matter of weeks. It would be better to see if the progress you are making can be contained.”

Read played an Ewok warrior in Return of the Jedi.

But he warned another offence would see him land in prison. “That is inevitable and nothing can save you,” he said.

He was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register on the date of his first conviction for exposure. He also has a number of sex offences on a criminal record dating back to 1995 and had previously been convicted of making lewd phone calls to women.

The indecent assault conviction dated back to 2004 after a New Year’s Eve party with the cast of a Snow White play, when Read drunkenly climbed into bed with the sleeping stage manager and his girlfriend, where he assaulted the woman.

Read, also known as Nick Johnsson, played a Gringots goblin in the first Harry Potter film before his Hollywood blacklist. He now works for Dwarf-Management in Cheadle, Staffordshire.

He told The Sun: “My conscience is clear.”

He also played a Gringots goblin in Harry Potter.

Read had made up to £800 ($A1,642) a week since the age of 16 appearing in pantomimes.

After Read’s first offence on the London to Leicester train, a British Transport Police spokesman said: “His actions were deplorable.

“He targeted a young lone female, unable to move from her seat, was too scared to speak, and was paralysed by fear from his actions, worried he may assault her too.

“Read’s denial of committing this offence led to his victim having to relive the upsetting ordeal again in court.

“His behaviour was completely unacceptable but the victim reporting the incident straight away enabled police to make a swift arrest.”

A version of this article originally appeared on The Sun.