Hoppers Crossing man Hewa Sandaru Mutukumarana assaulted 11-year-old girl

A court was told a Hoppers Crossing man’s “repressed childhood” led to him assaulting an 11-year-old girl.

Hewa Mutukumarana faced court for kissing an 11-year-old girl.

A Hoppers Crossing man who has some “real issues with the opposite sex” has been sentenced for assaulting an 11-year-old girl on Valentine’s Day.

While on work experience in the Geelong CBD, Hewa Sandaru Mutukumarana took the girl to a private place, kissed her and put his hands on her.

Mutukumarana, 24, pleaded guilty to the assault in the Geelong Magistrates Court this week and was sentenced to a community corrections order on Friday.

The girl was smoking a cigarette on February 14 last year when Mutukumarana approached her and asked for one.

The girl told him she was 11 but Mutukumarana told her he had to go back to work and asked if she wanted to see it.

While they walked back, Mutukumarana asked if she had kissed anyone before and he told her he had not.

When he asked if he could kiss her, she said yes.

Mutukumarana, of Hoppers Crossing, started kissing her while putting his hands on her breasts over her clothing.

His lawyer, Ryan Robertson, said it was “serious offending” and Mutukumarana acknowledges that it was wrong.

Mr Robertson said Mutukumarana’s parents work in the medical profession and he grew up in a “supportive household” but was mostly “repressed” and was unable to create “any healthy relationships, let alone healthy conversations with the opposite sex”.

“This is a very ugly manifestation of this repression and isolation and lack of romantic and sexual milestones,” Mr Robertson said.

During sentencing submissions, Mr Robertson added that Mutukumarana is a “man with quite a complex set of needs”.

“There are some real issues in respect to the opposite sex,” he said.

Mutukumarana is originally from Geelong but moved to Berrigan in NSW following this offending.

A community corrections order report was handed to the court, which Magistrate Ann McGarvie said was a “bit concerning”.

Ms McGarvie said the report indicated Mutukumarana said he would “struggle” to attend programs in Melbourne.

Mutukumarana was put on a community corrections order for two years and placed on the sex offenders registry.

Ms McGarvie told him he would have to return to the court later this year for judicial monitoring to ensure he is complying.

“The next avenue is jail,” Ms McGarvie warned him.

Originally published as Hoppers Crossing man Hewa Sandaru Mutukumarana assaulted 11-year-old girl