Mum sexually assaulted in own home

But after hearing that David Brown had “misread the signs” and was a “gentle, immature” man who craved affection, a judge imposed a two-year prison sentence suspended for two years.

He also ordered him to attend a sex offenders’ treatment programme and a 30 day rehabilitation course and also to sign the Sex Offenders Register for ten years.

Brown, of Holding Street, Hindley, pleaded guilty to sexual assault.

Arthur Gibson, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court that the incident happened on February 7 last year at the Platt Bridge home of the 21-year-old victim.

When she went into the back garden for a cigarette he followed her and began to touch her and said she was “sexy” and pulled her towards him by the hips saying, “You know you want it.” She told him to get off and went back into the house.

Inside, despite her holding her baby as she sat on the settee, he started trying to kiss her on the lips and when she turned her head he kissed her on the neck. Despite two other young children being present he grabbed hold of her and opened her legs but fortunately the children just thought he was being funny and messing around.

He dragged her to the floor still trying to kiss her and when she was able to get up and went over to the door telling him to leave he trapped her there, said Mr Gibson.

Sentencing him, Judge Neil Flewitt, QC, said that Brown then exposed himself and told her to touch him. “At that stage she may have feared you were about to commit a more serious sexual assault.”

He said the victim tried to hurt Brown but it only seemed to encourage him further and he molested her. “She elbowed you and kicked you with sufficient force to make you let go.”

He picked up a mobile phone and said he would not give it back unless she performed a sex act on him which she refused and she slammed the door in his face.

Judge Flewitt said that the victim had been vulnerable, trapped in her own home and responsible for young children. He also pointed out that when he was a juvenile he committed two other sex assaults at the residential home where he lived.

But he said he accepted he was genuinely remorseful and he had been impressed by four references including one offering him a job with a youth project.

Rachel Shenton, defending, told the court that Brown had been in care since the age of three and then moved from foster home to foster home which left him craving affection. The incident had started as a joke but “there seems to have been a misunderstanding on his part.

Since the incident he has become a husband looking after his one-year-old child and his partner’s five-year-old, she said.