NO JAIL FOR PARK SEX ATTACKER
A SEX attacker who groped and molested a 13-year-old girl in a park has been spared jail by a judge.Bradford Crown Court was told yesterday that Mohammed Ali, 19, had been with a group of friends when he targeted the youngster.
Ali was in Greenhead Park when he walked up to the girl and asked her to perform a sex act on one of his friends.
When she refused, Ali told her that he did not have a girlfriend and asked her if she would go in the bushes with him.
Again she refused and started to walk off, but Ali followed her and put his hands on either side of her head.
In a statement she said he started to kiss her and put his tongue in her mouth.
She was struggling to get free, but prosecutor John Bull told the judge that Ali trapped her legs to stop her from escaping.
She tried to push him away, but he then put his hands down her top and groped her chest.
It was then that her friends managed to pull her free and the girls managed to get out of the park and called the police.
Officers were quickly on the scene and Ali was pointed out.
In his first interviews Ali, of North Street, Lockwood, Huddersfield, denied any wrongdoing, but in a later interview confessed to what he had done and claimed to be ashamed.
At an earlier hearing he had pleaded guilty to sexual assault, but at court yesterday said that he wanted to change his plea back to not guilty.
Judge Peter Benson refused the application.
Defence barrister Michelle Colbourne told Judge Benson that the offence was not the most serious of its type and added that her client was taking steps to address his alcohol and drugs misuse.
Judge Benson made Ali the subject of a three year supervision order and told him that he would have to complete 200 hours’ unpaid work.
Ordering him to sign on the sex offenders’ register for five years he added: “It seems to me that the public would be better served by you being in the community where you could receive some intensive supervision and efforts can be made to make you understand that you should not behave in this way and that it’s wholly unacceptable.”
