Geelong woman Lisa Gould sexually assaulted 14-year-old girl

A Geelong woman was “not pedophilic” when she sexually assaulted an underage girl, a court was told.

Lisa Gould inappropriately touched a minor over her clothes. Picture: Facebook.

An “erratic” and intoxicated Geelong woman inappropriately touched an underage girl and told her she wanted to “get into that”.

Lawyer for Geelong woman Lisa Gould, 39, said she was “erratic” and acting strangely but she was “not pedophilic” when she inappropriately touched a 14-year-old girl over her clothes.

Barrister Katarina Ljubicic said the sexual assault, which occurred in May 2020, was a “joke” and Gould was “not able to read the room” in the moments she was in the home prior to the assault.

Gould, a mother of two, entered a plea of guilty to the sexual assault in the Geelong Magistrates Court on Wednesday and will be placed on the sex offender’s registry for a minimum of eight years.

While the girl was sitting on the couch and under a blanket, Gould moved her head towards the girl’s knee and then inappropriately touched her over her tracksuit pants.

While she did this, Gould said, “If I could, I’d get into that”.

The victim jumped up and ran out of the room to tell her stepfather.

When speaking to police, Gould denied sexually assaulting the girl and claimed she had touched her knee after “falling”.

The girl’s mother told officers Gould had been “behaving quite strangely” and was “behaving inappropriately generally”, including making sexualised comments to another person.

The court heard Gould and the young girl were introduced to each other in the moments before the assault.

Ms Ljubicic insisted there was “nothing pedophilic about this behaviour” and it was “not predatory in that sense”.

“It was a joke in a sexual nature and it went beyond community standards, but was certainly not for the purpose of sexual gratification,” Ms Ljubicic told the court.

“She just didn’t get how inappropriate it was.”

Ms Ljubicic added Gould was intoxicated at the time and, while she admitted to sexually touching the underage girl, it was “with attention seeking and sexual connotations” but was not predatory.

“My submission is it was spontaneous, there was no pre-planning and it cannot be described as predatory in any way that these offences normally are,” Ms Ljubicic said.

The prosecutor said whether the offending “is classed as your standard paedophilia or not”, it was still a sexual assault of a traumatised child who felt unsafe.

Gould will return to court next week for sentencing.

Originally published as Geelong woman Lisa Gould sexually assaulted 14-year-old girl