A man who indecently assaulted a 15-year-old schoolgirl in a North Hobart public toilet 17 years ago has been spared jail.
Matthew Xavier Wilson, 35, was sentenced in the Supreme Court in August to 12 months in prison, wholly suspended for 18 months.
He had pleaded not guilty to rape but guilty to indecent assault.
The court heard Wilson was sentenced in 2010 for sexual offences against two 12-year-old girls, some committed between May and August 2009.
“Clearly, you had a prurient sexual interest at that time in underage girls and I will sentence you on that basis,” Chief Justice Christopher Shanahan said.
In sentencing remarks, the chief justice said Wilson met the girl in 2009 through a group of schoolgirls who spent time in Hobart’s Elizabeth Street Mall and Franklin Square.
Wilson, who turned 18 that May, bought alcohol for the group.
On a day in July or August that year, he contacted the girl on social media and asked her to spend time with him after school, wearing her school uniform.
The court heard the girl told Wilson she did not want any more physical contact after he kissed her outside a church.
He later kissed her again at a skate park and persisted when she did not kiss him back.
When it began to rain, Wilson suggested they shelter in a public toilet, where he indecently assaulted her.
The chief justice said the girl froze and did not freely agree to the contact.
She reported the assault to police after seeing a counsellor in 2022.
In her victim impact statement, she said the anxiety caused by the assault led her to develop “tics”.
The chief justice said she had suffered recurrent nightmares and difficulties with intimacy and was “paranoid about being assaulted again”.
He accepted Wilson had not relevantly reoffended since 2010 and that his earlier suspended sentence had deterred him.
Satisfied Wilson did not pose a risk of reoffending, he declined to place him on the sex offender register.
Home detention was ruled out because of Wilson’s mental health and living situation.
“It was a serious indecent assault and has had substantial on-going effects on the complainant’s life,” the chief justice said.
Wilson was also placed on an 18-month community correction order, under which he must be supervised by a probation officer, undergo drug testing and treatment, avoid illicit drugs and attend mental health treatment.
If he breaches the order, he could be brought back to court and jailed.
