Step-grandfather who groped 14-year-old girl handed jail sentence in Toowoomba District Court

A 58-year-old man who groped his 14-year-old step-granddaughter has received a jail sentence. See what happened here:

A 58-year-old man who groped his 14-year-old step-granddaughter has been handed a jail sentence.

The man, who cannot named so as to protect the identity of the complainant, had been living with his partner and her granddaughter in a town to Toowoomba’s northwest in 2019 when the incident occurred.

Crown prosecutor Shontelle Petrie told Toowoomba District Court on the day in question the 14-year-old girl had been wearing a T-shirt but no bra when she was hanging clothes out on the clothesline.

The man crept up behind her and grabbed her breasts “and shook them”, she said.

When the girl told him to stop, the man laughed, she said.

On another occasion about a year later when the girl was 15, she had been bent over retrieving shopping items to put away when the man had smacked her bottom, Ms Petrie said.

The man pleaded guilty to indecent treatment of a child under 16 under care and to one count of common assault.

Judge Nathan Jarro told the man that any conviction of indecent treatment of a child was punishable by an actual term of imprisonment unless there were “exceptional circumstances”.

Ms Petrie told the court it was the Crown’s position that the judge could find exceptional circumstances in this case although, by the complainant’s victim impact statement, the incidents had had a significant effect on her.

The man had a dated, though serious, criminal history and he had been sentenced to seven years in jail for drug trafficking in 2009 for which he had served more than one year in prison, she said.

Judge Jarro told the man his offending was “a gross breach of trust of someone going through her formative years”.

However, finding that there were exceptional circumstances, Judge Jarro sentenced the man to four months in jail but ordered the whole term be suspended for 10 months.

Originally published as Step-grandfather who groped 14-year-old girl handed jail sentence in Toowoomba District Court