A 31-year-old man from La Hor­quet­ta, Ari­ma, con­vict­ed of sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ing his eight-year-old neigh­bour in 2010, has been sen­tenced to sev­en years in prison with hard labour.  

The man was con­vict­ed by a nine-mem­ber ju­ry be­fore High Court Judge Kathy Ann Wa­ter­man-Latchoo on Mon­day and was sen­tenced three days lat­er. 

The man, who said he in­tends to live with a rel­a­tive in La Brea up­on his even­tu­al re­lease, was or­dered to re­port to the La Brea Po­lice Sta­tion three times a year for six years af­ter com­plet­ing his sen­tence. 

The judge al­so di­rect­ed that he be placed on the na­tion­al sex of­fend­er reg­istry and on the pub­lic sex of­fend­er web­site. 

The man is ex­pect­ed to com­plete al­most the en­tire sen­tence as he on­ly spent a to­tal of one month in prison be­fore his tri­al and af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed.

He was ac­cused of at­tack­ing the vic­tim on April 10, 2010. 

The man, who was 17 years old at the time, was play­ing foot­ball in the vic­tim’s yard with the vic­tim and her friend. 

The girl took a break and went in­side to drink some wa­ter and was fol­lowed by the man, who was friends with her old­er broth­er. 

The vic­tim claimed that he came in­to the kitchen, took off her clothes and per­formed oral sex on her. 

The vic­tim’s broth­er-in-law, who was watch­ing tele­vi­sion in the liv­ing room, caught the man whilst he was com­mit­ting the at­tack.  

He claimed that the man was hold­ing down one of her hands and cov­er­ing her mouth and she was cry­ing and try­ing to push him away. 

The then-teenag­er ran away to his aunt, who he lived with next door. He re­port­ed­ly con­fessed to her and she gave him “licks”. 

When the po­lice ar­rived on the scene, the man con­fessed to them and the vic­tim’s moth­er. 

How­ev­er, de­spite his pre­vi­ous con­fes­sions, the man de­nied any wrong­do­ing when he chose to take the wit­ness stand to tes­ti­fy in his de­fence. 

He claimed that he was help­ing the vic­tim get wa­ter and the cup fell on the floor. 

He claimed that he bent down to pick up the cup and did not re­alise that the vic­tim was naked in front of him as the lights were off in the kitchen. 

The case was pros­e­cut­ed by Dy­lan Mar­tin and Niara Boodan, of the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).