Suspended sentence for sex assault landlord

Adrian Phillips (55) plied the 18-year-old girl with drink before touching her, although she remembered nothing after that until coming round in a nearby cafe.

Phillips, of Sunnyside Close, Rotherham, invited the tenant to his home to help with some paperwork for her benefits, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

The pair were drinking beer and chatting in his garden about 10.30am on July 22 last year when the girl began to feel tipsy, said Mr Thomas Storey, prosecuting.

Phillips went to the shops then returned and poured the teenager more drink, although the teenager said she had drunk enough.

When she said she felt tired he moved next to her and suggested she could go upstairs with him to his bed.

Phillips ran his hand up her thigh towards her groin when she became scared, stood up and left for home, Mr Storey said.

The prosecutor said the girl came round “distressed and quite drunk” in a nearby cafe at about 2pm that day and took a taxi home, where a friend called the police.

Phillips was arrested the next day and told police he thought the girl was playing “come on” before she crashed out.

“We were both very drunk and she owes me £700, the b****,” he told officers.

Phillips said the girl was drunk and had gone upstairs to lie down, where he had taken off his T-shirt off before getting into bed with her.

He had been in a “bit of a haze” and did not know what he had done but “might have put his arm round her,” Phillips said.

Phillips was bailed but a few days later sent the girl texts saying she should contact Rotherham police and withdraw her allegations or it would be a “very messy court case”, plus another message telling her to “get out of his flat”.

Phillips was rearrested after going to the flat, where the victim refused to let him in.

Mr Dermot Hughes, mitigating, said the complainant owed Phillips, who admitted sexual assault, a “substantial” amount of money because she had not been paying the rent and eviction proceedings were taking place.

The court heard Phillips has a drink problem and was convicted of drink driving in 2013.

Judge Simon Lawler jailed Phillips for 15 months in prison suspended for 12 months and made him subject to supervision for a year and made a restraining order banning him from contacting the teenager.