A 45-YEAR-OLD man who groped a teenage girl in a St Helier nightclub has been jailed for six months.
Lloyd William Evans claimed he had touched the 17-year-old victim accidentally but he was found guilty at a Magistrate’s Court trial last month of sexual touching without consent, during which it was heard that he had assaulted another girl in a similar way on the same evening.
The case prompted dozens of women to give their own experiences of being groped in Jersey nightclubs and sparked a special report in the JEP about the extent of the problem in the Island.
Some said that uninvited sexual touching had become so common on nights out that they were ‘desensitised’ to it.
Figures last year revealed that there had been 650 reports of violence and sexual violence against women in the previous five years, but had resulted in only 72 convictions.
At Evans’s sentencing yesterday the Magistrate, Bridget Shaw, said that his decision to plead not guilty – necessitating the trial, and putting the two girls through the ordeal of giving evidence – was one reason why prison was the only option.
The court heard how, in November last year, Evans had placed his hand between the victim’s legs and moved it up her body to her chest while on the dancefloor of the pub and nightclub Chambers, in Mulcaster Street.
He claimed that he had done so unintentionally, but the judge decided the act had been deliberate and uninvited. The court heard from a witness and another girl who said she had also been touched by Evans, but who had decided not to lodge a formal complaint.
Advocate James Bell, defending, said the act had been ‘unplanned and of brief duration’.
He also said that Evans had no relevant previous convictions and was assessed as at a low risk of reoffending.
‘He is unlikely to commit a sexual offence or any offence at all in the future,’ he said.
Advocate Bell, who called for a community service order, added that Evans had had a difficult upbringing, with ‘some significant bereavements on the way’ but had support from his employer, family and girlfriend.
Mrs Shaw accepted that the touching was ‘fleeting and apparently unplanned’ and that Evans had no relevant previous convictions.
But she told him: ‘You pleaded not guilty, which entailed two young women having to come to court to give evidence.
‘What you did was shocking for her and distressing. It happened in public, but you seem to have been uninhibited.
‘This is not a matter for which I can give community service. In my view custody is the only appropriate sentence.’
As well as being jailed for six months, Evans was also placed on the Sex Offenders Register for five years
