Iliava Gerua Mateo jailed for stroking sleeping Mackay teen in drunken break and enter

A man drunkenly broke into a house and touched an underage girl as she slept. He says he thought she was someone else.

Iliava Gerua Mateo broke into a woman’s house while drunk and touched a child’s leg.

A Mackay man has provided an underage teenager with “every woman’s worst nightmare” after he broke into a house and stroked her leg while she slept.

Iliava Gerua Mateo broke into the house of a woman he had seen at the pub while he was drunk.

Later in the night on November 16, 2019, the 36-year-old Fijian man decided to attend her house but she was not home at the time.

Two teenagers on a sleepover were inside the house.

Mateo entered the house and found the pair sleeping in the living room.

Mackay District Court heard one of the girls woke up at 4am to find the man “stroking her leg under the covers”.

Crown prosecutor Samantha O’Rourke said Mateo told the girl he was their “friend”.

Police were called and Mateo was found in nearby streets.

He told police he had been drinking throughout the day.

Ms O’Rourke told the court it was not the first an incident like this had occurred, citing a history littered with drunken efforts to break in to properties.

Defence barrister Scott McLennan said his client was horrified he assaulted an underage person, and said he thought it was the woman he had seen at the pub.

“He’s mortified he touched a child,” he said.

Judge Julie Dick said alcohol was a problem for Mateo.

“I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice man when he’s not drunk,” she said.

“When you drink, you make stupid decisions.”

“It’s an odd thing to do, to go in for no apparent reason like theft or sex.”

Mateo pleaded guilty in Mackay District Court to burglary and common assault.

Judge Dick sentenced him to a 15-month jail term, with 63 days already served, and parole release on April 1, 2022.