Facing jail, ‘awkward’ teen who touched girl’s waist
Student claimed he just wanted to make a friend
A ‘SHY and awkward’ undergraduate is facing jail as a convicted sex offender after he touched a girl on the arm and waist as he tried to talk to her.
Jamie Griffiths, now 19, had searched online for ‘how to make a friend’ and then twice attempted to engage the 17year-old in conversation.
But she burst into tears during the second encounter when he did not say anything but touched her waist, and went to police claiming he would have touched her breast had she not moved away.
Yesterday, Griffiths, a Durham University student, was convicted of two charges of sexual assault. He denied the charges, claiming he was a ‘shy, anxious and awkward’ teenager who had clumsily approached the girl in an attempt ‘ to make a friend but the words didn’t come out’.
He will be sentenced later this month and also faces being ordered to sign the sex offenders register. Sexual assault carries a maximum sentence of ten years in jail if dealt with at a crown court.
Manchester Magistrates’ Court heard that the incidents occurred while the pair were studying for A-levels, and Griffiths, then 18, was living with his parents in a £650,000 detached house in the affluent town of Knutsford, Cheshire. The girl said she had been walking home from an English lesson last October when she encountered Griffiths on a bridge bordering fields. She told the hearing he had been ‘facing a hedge and I thought it was really weird’, adding: ‘As I walked towards him, I was watching him and he suddenly swung round so he was facing me.’
She said she called out ‘Stop!’ but he touched her on the arm.
The girl went on: ‘I sort of jolted out of the way and I went into the road to avoid him, and
‘I went into the road to avoid him’
he very quickly walked away. I think it would have been on my breast had I not moved.’
At the time she said she dismissed the incident as ‘weird behaviour’ but later reported it to police as she had heard about other incidents.
Then, at lunchtime on November 7, she encountered Griffiths again. ‘The pavement was quite wide but he suddenly moved to walk in front of me, looked me straight in the eye and touched me on my side,’ she said.
She told the court he ‘smirked’ at her then walked off and she broke down crying. After unsuccessfully attempting to take his photo she called her mother, who took her to a police station.
The teenager said that after the incidents she had begun to feel unsafe even in her own home and struggled to ‘focus’ on her revision, which in turn affected her university prospects.
‘Even today, walking down the street, it just makes everything a little bit scarier – if there is a guy walking towards me by himself I start to panic, it is just part of everyday life.’
Griffiths, who had been volunteering at a Barnardo’s charity shop, told the hearing he simply ‘went to touch her arm to start a conversation and she just walked off’.
He blamed his silence during the encounters on his anxiety ‘kicking in’.
Insisting he was ‘just trying to be friendly’, he said: ‘Touching someone’s arm to get their attention, I would have thought, was normal.’
He added that he was ‘ very anxious and I don’t naturally make friends, although really I try to’. He said he had searched online for ‘ trying to meet new people’ and ‘make new friends’.
‘I really needed someone to talk to at the time and my intention was to make a friend – but I clearly didn’t go about it the right way and I am sorry for the misunderstanding,’ he said.
However, prosecutor Victoria Norman said: ‘ He intended to touch her breast area and was waiting for her.’
Magistrates praised the girl’s ‘clear, logical’ evidence and told Griffiths: ‘ We can think of no motivation for you to touch the victim other than sexual. Had she not taken evasive action the assault was likely to have been even more serious.’