Bryson Clarence Potter sexually assaulted 18-year-old girl in his car

The 83-year-old man had befriended the 18-year-old woman who he had known for four or five years, the court heard.

The 83-year-old was handed a jail term after he pleaded guilty in Toowoomba Magistrates Court to sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman.

AN 83-year-old Toowoomba man without any criminal convictions has been handed a jail term after sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman.

Bryson Clarence Potter had known the victim’s father for some seven years and had met the young woman four or five years before the incident on August 31, 2021, Toowoomba Magistrates Court heard.

Despite their age difference, the pair were friends and Potter had invited the young woman for breakfast that morning.

They met in the car park of Wyalla Plaza Shopping Centre before she got into his car and he drove them to a nearby McDonalds where they had breakfast, police prosecutor Bettina Trenear told the court.

After breakfast the woman got back into Potter’s car but instead of him driving her back to her car, he drove in the opposite direction to an isolated place in Torrington where he parked and unbuckled his seatbelt.

He then grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled her toward him as if to kiss her and she had said “no”, Ms Trenear said.

He had then grabbed the woman briefly on the breast prompting her to say “no” again.

Potter had then driven her back to her car.

The victim told her boyfriend before telling her parents, Ms Trenear said.

When spoken to by police on September 23, Potter declined a record of interview and was charged with sexual assault.

He pleaded guilty to the charge when he appeared in Toowoomba Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

Ms Trenear read to the court the woman’s victim impact statement in which she told how the incident had changed her life.

She had deferred her university studies as she found she couldn’t focus on studies and that “the assault has damaged my ability to trust anyone”, she said.

Ms Trenear submitted Potter’s offending was a “significant breach of trust” and a “significant invasion of her personal space”.

Potter’s barrister Wes Seewald said his client had written letters of apology to the victim and her father and entered an early plea of guilty after case conferencing.

“He is 83 with no blemishes on his history until this point,” Mr Seewald submitted.

His client had three adult children and he had made full and frank admissions to his family, he said.

Magistrate Howard Osborne said a period of imprisonment was appropriate given the seriousness of the offence and the effect it had had on the victim.

Mr Osborne sentenced Potter to four months in jail but ordered the whole term be suspended forthwith for two years.