AN abuser who touched an eight-year-old girl’s private parts tried to pacify her family by offering to buy her a kitten.
Richard Griffiths slept on a sofa at the girl’s home after a night out drinking and assaulted her when she went downstairs in the morning to watch television.
He touched her over and under her clothing and was thrown out of the house by her parents when she went upstairs and told them what he had done.
He sent them messages saying he could not remember touching the girl but offering to buy her a kitten as a way of saying sorry.
Griffiths, aged 37, of Barnpark Terrace, Teignmouth, denied two counts of sexual assault but was convicted by a jury at Exeter Crown Court last month.
He was jailed for two years and nine months by Judge Peter Johnson, put on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years and made subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for the same period.
The judge told him: ‘Your actions had a marked effect on the girl. It has affected her schooling and her approach to males and will no doubt endure for a long time.’
Miss Bathsheba Cassel prosecuting, said the assaults happened on the morning of May 19, 2019, when the girl went downstairs to watch television and found Griffith sleeping on the sofa.
Her parents told him to leave and there was an exchange of texts in which he said he could not remember touching her but offered to buy her a kitten to make up for any upset she may have suffered.
Mr Richard Crabb defending, said Griffiths still has no recollection of touching the girl. He said the offence was not planned or organised and happened on the spur of the moment.
The sentence included the activation of a one year suspended sentence imposed in August 2018 for growing and supplying cannabis.
In that case, he was caught because his hydroponic system overflowed and flooded the flat beneath it in Paignton. Police found a second grow at Barnpark Terrace. He claimed he was growing the drugs to treat his epilepsy but also hoped to make cash to pay off debts.