AN AUTISTIC man has been found guilty of committing 16 sexual assaults against two young girls when he was himself a child or a teenager.

Liam Soper-James, from Newton Abbot, who suffers from ADHD, dyspraxia, dyslexia, anxiety, social phobia and Asperger Syndrome, was only ten or 11 when he committed the first offences in the 2000s. 

He went on to abuse both girls in a number of occasions including attempting to rape one when she was aged about 12 and touching the other when she was just nine years old.

Soper-James, aged 26, of Woodleigh Road, denied but was found guilty of 16 offences by a jury at Exeter Crown Court this week.

He was convicted of one attempted rape, two counts of inciting sexual activity with a child, five of sexual assault and two of assault by penetration against one child.

He was also found guilty of four sexual assaults, one assault by penetration and one charge of inciting sexual activity with a child in relation to the second.

Judge David Evans adjourned his sentence until next month and ordered a probation report. He said Soper-James will be sentenced under guidelines which set out how adults should be punished for offences which they committed as children.

During the trial, Miss Rachel Drake, prosecuting, said one girl was touched sexually by Soper-James from the age of about six while the other’s abuse started when she was nine.

The activity included him touching both girls, making them touch him, simulated sex with one of them and an attempt to have sex with one of them on a single occasion.

One of the girls told her mother about what was happening at one stage but Soper-James, who was a teenager at the time, denied it and was believed. The girls finally went to the police when they were in their late teens.

Soper-James denied any sexual interest in either of the girls and said the only physical contact had been when one of them had smacked his bottom and he had done the same to her in response.

He said he was a catering student at South Devon College before his arrest. He said his physical and psychological conditions, linked with the stress of this case, means he cannot work and is currently living on Personal Independence Payments.

He told the jury he has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, autism, Asperger Syndrome, dyspraxia, dyslexia, issues of coordination, depression, generalised anxiety disorder, social phobia and panic.

He said he had difficulty making friends at school, felt isolated, and his only job had been working in a burger restaurant one summer. He described himself as ‘asexual and not attracted to any gender’.