Published at 11:09, Thursday, 31 May 2012

A PERVERT who twice molested teenage girls in public in Whitehaven has had his sentence more than halved on appeal.

Grant Philip Percival, 28, was jailed for two-and-a-half years at Carlisle Crown Court in February after he admitted sexual assault, making malicious phones calls and breaching his sex offenders’ notification requirements.

But three senior judges, sitting at London’s Court of Appeal, cut that sentence to one year, meaning Percival will be back on the streets later this summer.

Judge Anthony Russell QC told the court Percival was ordered to inform authorities of his whereabouts after he was released from prison for an indecent assault on a girl in North Wales more than eight years ago. But he went off the police radar last summer, eventually turning up drunk in Whitehaven, where he approached two 14-year-old girls in the town centre, the court heard.

After offering one girl £50, some cigarettes and alcohol “for a snog”, he took the other girl behind a tree and held her by the shoulders, the judge said.

He told her: “I want to snog you because you’re really beautiful. I know I’m your type of lad. I know you fancy me.” The petrified youngster ran off, the court heard.

Lawyers for Percival, of John Street, Carlisle, claimed that, considering the offences were relatively minor and he immediately pleaded guilty, he should have got a shorter sentence.

Judge Russell ruled the prison term was more akin to that handed out for sex offences involving nudity, and reduced the overall sentence to one year.

Percival, who was identified as “posing a high risk of harm to young girls”, will be eligible for release after serving half of that.

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk