Alex Warren, 20, was walking home with his friend Charlie Bond from a night out at the pub last November when they encountered Joshua Hunt in his gimp suit in Cleeve, North Somerset.
Last week, Hunt, a self-employed gardener, was found guilty of causing intentional harassment, alarm, or distress after scaring female motorists while dressed in a gimp suit.
The 32-year-old was fined £100 and ordered to pay £200 compensation to each of his victims and £620 in prosecution costs.
Initially charged with outraging public decency when he confronted the pair of chefs.
But Hunt was let off the hook by the CPS, which wrote to Mr Warren in June, stating that “the audio footage captured on the mobile phone (taken by Mr Warren) suggests it did not impact you in that way”.
Despite laughing and offering Hunt a cigarette before sending him on his way, the chef, from Yatton, said that he was still affected by the incident. Despite this, he believes that prison “doesn’t work” and that Hunt needs “proper therapy” from specialists.
“If he reoffends I think depends on how well he is rehabilitated,” he said. “If he goes to prison, I would not be surprised (if he reoffended), but if he gets therapy, then I would be surprised.
“Prison doesn’t work – we know this. He needs proper rehab with specialist experts to try and help him.
“He needs therapy, and I don’t think prison will work. I think it will either fuel him from the isolation – I can’t imagine he’ll have much contact with his family, and he’ll get even worse. I can’t see how that will be an effective way forward. I don’t want to undermine the feelings of the women or the girls who were alone.”
Mr Hunt was speaking ahead of giving a statement to magistrates on Friday as part of Avon and Somerset Constabulary’s application to extend a Sexual Risk Order.
The order has already been granted on an interim basis and prohibits Hunt from possessing specific items of clothing and acting in certain ways. If he breaches this condition of the order, he could be arrested.
Despite appearing to take the confrontation well, Mr Warren says it still affected him.
“It definitely impacted me – anything that happens to anyone impacts them,” he said. “There were a few incidents afterwards where I could directly link my behaviour to that night.
“The week after, I was walking back from Cleeve shops. I was already a little bit on edge but played it off. As I walked around the corner, I could see a pretty big guy walking towards me, shrouded in darkness.
“I tensed up and had a can of Monster in my hand ready to batter him because all I could think of after the incident. All the things you don’t think of in the moment because you are paralysed trying to process it – because it’s so absurd.
“Nothing in life can prepare you for that. Laughing is a direct response to fear. That incident played back in my mind in the weeks after so many times. Different scenarios like ‘why didn’t you just tackle him?’
“I’d never want to cause bodily harm – but when you’ve got everyone saying – ‘I would have jumped on him or battered him.’ ‘You wouldn’t have.’ I think if I hadn’t laughed, they might have kept the charge.
“It was obviously a nervous laugh because I was seeing if he’s alright. It instantly went straight past ‘omg it’s a monster’ to ‘right, it’s a human, and clearly, something’s going wrong in that life’.”
