September 2014
Suspended sentence for sex assault
A pensioner who admitted sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl in a supermarket has walked free from court with a three month suspended jail term
At Craigavon Magistrates Court on Friday, District Judge Mervyn Bates told 71-year-old Robert McComb that despite his last minute guilty plea: “I’m concerned about the lack of remorse and the lack of acceptance.”
Minutes before his young victim was due to give evidence against him McComb, from Daisy Hill Court in Banbridge, admitted sexually assaulting a female child under the age of 13 on 25 July last year.
A prosecution lawyer told the court that a week after the incident, the girl’s mother told police how her young daughter had been sexually assaulted in the middle of Asda supermarket in Portadown and the schoolgirl herself said a man had “slapped her bottom.”
The little girl gave police a description and after she pointed him out on CCTV footage, officers arrested McComb last September.
During police questioning, McComb denies touching the girl’s bottom, claiming that it may have been an “accidental brush.”
That claim however is not accepted by the prosecution whose lawyer said: “That’s certainly not how it appeared on the footage.”
The pensioner’s defence barrister revealed that although he has a clear criminal record, McComb has a previous police caution for a similar offence in December 2012 and that given his guilty plea, “he will leave this court with a permanent stain on his record.”
The lawyer submitted that a period on probation would “help him going forward and help the public” be protected but District Judge Bates disagreed, telling the court he believed “this is a matter which can only be dealt with by a custodial sentence.”
The three month term was suspended for three years and the pensioner ordered to pay £750 to his victim by way of compensation as “that’s the least that can be done to show some remorse,” District Judge Bates ordered McComb to sign the police sex offenders’ register for seven years.
In addition, the judge imposed a five year Sexual Offences Prevention Order, describing it as “an additional safeguard” which bars McComb from having unsupervised contact with children, loitering near child centred facilities, contacting his injured party and from being at a bus stop when schools are opening and closing.
