A COMMUNITY volunteer who sexually assaulted a young girl has received a suspended jail sentence.
The man, who cannot be named, pleaded guilty to two offences in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court. He was jailed for six months, with the term suspended for two years.
He was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for eight years.
Police alleged that during February this year the man put his hands under a young girl’s dress and touched her around the area near the top of her underwear. He also tried to kiss her.
The girl told him he was a dirty old man and not to touch her.
She was upset, crying and hysterical. The matter was reported to police by her father.
The defendant told police the victim had initiated the contact by rubbing against him and attempting to kiss him.
In a victim impact statement read to the court yesterday, the girl said she now felt frightened and did not want to walk down the street by herself.
She said pictures of what happened kept popping into her head.
The girl’s father said it was heartbreaking to watch his daughter suffer, as she was withdrawn, scared of the dark, had little appetite and had been bullied at school.
Magistrate Jonathan Klestadt said the consequences of the man’s behaviour was devastating.