HOMELESS PERVERT GROPED TWO WOMEN WHILE AT ‘COVID HOTEL’
Victims were left traumatised by ordeal
A CONVICTED sex offender forced himself on two hotel guests after he was booked into a room under a Government scheme following his release from jail.
Jamie Smart, from Stoke-on-trent, grabbed one woman by her breasts and put his hand up the other’s victim skirt after he was rehomed under a programme to help the homeless during covid.
Both victims were unaware drifter Smart had a 15-year history of sexual offending and was on the Sex Offender Register.
One is now too scared to be cuddled by her own boyfriend and has gone teetotal for fear she might be taken advantage of.
Former warehouseman Smart, aged 31, had been booked into the three-star Wigan Oak Hotel in Greater Manchester after a 10-month stretch for failing to comply with the terms of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
Bolton Crown Court heard he attacked the first victim in July as they queued for a buffet dinner.
Mark Kellet, prosecuting, said: “He was stood behind her when he slapped and groped her bottom saying: ‘you’ve got a peachy bum!’ She said: “If you do that again, I’ll slap you in the mush’ but he replied: “Do it – I might like it.’ He then continued to touch her bottom on several occasions.”
Mr Kellet added: “Three to four days later she was in the garden of the hotel when the defendant approached her from behind wrapped his arms around her and grabbed her left breast. She didn’t say anything because she felt defenceless as they were alone.”
Smart also made inappropriate sexual comments to another guest, asking her to sit on his knee, bragging he would ‘show her a real man.’
She dismissed the comments as banter but when she played a pool at a nearby pub, Smart came up behind her and twice put his hand between her legs and touched her genital area.
Mr Kellet added: “She made it clear she did not want him to do that but back at the hotel he continued to make sexual comments towards her. She said she felt horrible about how Smart touched her and felt worse when she found out he was on the Sex Offender Register.
“This defendant showed a complete disregard for the views of each victim. Both women were particularly vulnerable.”
Police later attended at the hotel and found Smart had been flouting the terms of his Sex Offender notification requirements by not registering a bank card with police. He had 23 offences in his record starting in 2006 for sexual activity with a child for which he was given a six month detention and training order.
In a statement, the first victim said: “I still feel physically sick about what he did to me. I think about what he did most days and it has made my depression and anxiety worse.”
The second woman said: “I am now suffering on many ways. I’ve never been so low in terms of confidence and I am constantly scared of being around men in case they do anything to me.”
She added: “I do not drink alcohol now – not even socially- as I am so scared I will be sexually assaulted or raped.”
Smart, who grew up in Stoke-ontrent, was jailed for nine months after he was convicted of two charges of sexual assault and failing to comply with the Sex Offender Register. He denied the charges.
He will have to abide by a new five year Sexual Harm Prevention Order which bans him from being in the company of any lone woman except when it becomes unavoidable during ‘normal daily life.’’
Sentencing him, the judge Miss
Recorder Sarah Johnston told Smart: ““You have invaded these women’s privacy their sense of security and their sense of self.” Smart will remain on the Sex Offender Register for another 10 years.