Sex offender jailed after traumatising young victim

A Wrexham man has been sentenced to custody after sexually assaulting a young girl and failing to surrender to court bail. 🧑‍⚖️

Stephen Asher, 41, of Maes Teg in Penycae, appeared at Caernarfon Crown Court on Wednesday where he received a 60-week immediate custodial sentence after previously admitting one offence of sexual assault and one of failing to surrender to police or court bail.

The court heard that the sexual assault involved Asher touching a young girl’s legs and putting his hand over her private parts.

Prosecutor Dafydd Roberts told the court that Asher had denied the offences until the day of trial, forcing his victim to attend court and be cross-examined during a pre-trial hearing. He also caused delays to the court process by failing to appear in court last July.

Despite defence counsel John Wyn Williams asking the court to consider giving Asher credit for not proceeding to full trial, Judge Timothy Petts responded: “He had a hearing where the victim was cross-examined as if she wasn’t telling the truth and changed his plea on the day the jury was due to be sworn. At the moment I’m not thinking of giving him any credit.”

In sentencing, Judge Petts told Asher: “You were behaving in an inappropriate and sexual way. I’m told you now accept the sexual motivation in what you did, but when you spoke to the author of the pre-sentence report you refused to accept responsibility. You showed no remorse. She was clearly very traumatised by what you did.”

The judge also described Asher’s failure to attend court last July as a “deliberate attempt to delay or evade justice.”

In addition to his custodial sentence, Asher was made subject to a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and sex offender notification provisions for the same period.

Judge Petts warned that although Asher may already be subject to automatic release on licence due to time spent on remand, any failure to comply with licence terms would result in him being recalled to serve the full sentence behind bars. ⚖️