A 50-year-old man sexually molested a young girl in Leigh.
David Jolly pleaded guilty to two offences of assaulting the 11-year-old girl by touching her sexually between January and August last year.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that the girl, who is now 12, was described in a victim impact statement as “quiet and more withdrawn” since the incidents.
Judge David Boulton imposed a 12 month sentence suspended for two years on Jolly who has no similar previous convictions. Jolly was also placed under supervision for two years on condition he attends a sex offenders treatment programme.
The judge told Jolly: “It is rigorous and demanding so don’t think that you can breeze through it, because you won’t.”
He explained that if he jailed him he would come out without having changed “one iota” which would not help anyone.
He ordered him to sign on the Sex Offenders Register for five years and made a Sexual Offences Prevention Order banned him from being alone with children under 16.
Paul Becker, prosecuting, said that after Jolly, of Clement Street, Accrington, molested the girl she was too afraid to tell her parents but she told a friend who told them.
He said that before the offences came to light on August 21, Jolly and a barmaid, who happened to be a friend of the girl’s father, were talking about paedophiles and Jolly said to her: “You’d be surprised how many ten or 11-year-olds ask for it”.
The shocked woman, who herself has a young daughter, asked how they could possibly ask for sex and he said he had worked with young girls and knew they did.
When arrested Jolly denied the allegations, said Mr Becker.
Michael Marr, defending, said Jolly had bravely pleaded guilty and spared the girl the ordeal of giving evidence. He is now a social pariah and his home had been fire bombed.
Jolly, who received incapacity benefit following a road traffic accident, has been ostracised by his family and friends, said Mr Marr.
