A former South Coast man who pleaded guilty to breaking into a Sanctuary Point home and touching a sleeping eight-year-old girl and indecently assaulting another girl in a separate incident has been jailed for four years.
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The now 25-year-old, who can't be named for legal reasons, appeared in Nowra District Court on August 7, pleading guilty to aggravated break and enter committing a serious indictable offence and an act of indecency with a person under 16.
Court papers said in March 2015, the then 20-year-old was at the Sanctuary Point home of a 15-year-old girl with some friends.
The group were in the girl's bedroom, with the man lying next to her on the bed.
She told him if she fell asleep he would have to leave, however, during the night she awoke to the feeling of hands inside her pants and underwear and rubbing.
The girl tried to show she wasn't awake and moved positions.
When she woke the next morning he was still next to her.
When she reported the matter to police she said she had not seen the person's face but he had "hands like sandpaper" and that she had "felt the man's hands before and they were rough".
The man also pleaded guilty to the aggravated break-in of a home at Sanctuary Point around 2.15am on March 18, 2016 and touching an eight-year-old girl who was asleep in the loungeroom.
Court papers said the then 21-year-old broke through the flyscreen door before opening the unlocked front door, and found the girl asleep on a mattress in the lounge room, next to her mother who was on the lounge.
Court papers said the girl was only sleeping in underpants, and the intruder touched the girl in the vicinity of her underwear.
The woman woke to see a man wearing dark pants and jacket with a hood and wearing a cap backwards standing at the end of the mattress.
The mother yelled for help and armed herself with a knife from the kitchen while the man ran from the property.
The girl's father and sister were both asleep in other parts of the house.
The girl underwent a number of forensic procedures, which police produced as evidence during the hearing.
Following investigations, the man was charged on July 25, 2016 while in custody at the Wellington Correctional Centre for a different charge of assault with an act of indecency.
Judge Warwick Hunt sentenced the man in Nowra District Court to four years' jail with a non-parole period of two and a half years.
With time already served he will be eligible for release in December this year.
Read more: Crime/Court
