The victim, who was a visitor to the Island, was making her way back to the Mayfair Hotel after a night out when she was assaulted.
Her attacker – 26-year-old Micael Alexandre Miran Martins – escaped a prison sentence after admitting committing the unprovoked indecent assault on the stranger in Ingouville Place in April last year. He was sentenced in the Magistrate’s Court to 120 hours of community service and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for four years.
Outlining the case, police legal adviser Susie Sharpe said: ‘As she is not from Jersey, she lost her direction to the hotel. When she was en route to
the hotel she was confronted by the defendant.
‘He appeared standing very close to her. With one hand he grabbed her in the area of her crotch over her clothing and then he ran away.’
The court heard that she called the police and later made a statement of complaint.
The woman, who lives in the UK, later correctly identified the defendant in an identity parade.
Miss Sharpe said that, when interviewed, Martins told officers he had no recollection of any encounter with the victim.
‘He said that he was 100% sure he did not remember. Alcohol is clearly an aggravating factor in that he drank to such excess he has no recollection,’ she said.
Advocate Ian Jones, defending, submitted that the offence was ‘out of character’ for Martins, of Stopford Road. He said that the defendant’s employer was in court to act as a referee and there were a number of good references.
The Magistrate, Bridget Shaw, said this was a ‘serious matter’.
‘This woman should have been able to walk to through the centre of St Helier without being assaulted in an indecent and intimate way by you,’ she said.
She added: ‘You violated her privacy, her dignity and her self-respect.’
