A PERVERT who broke into a home and sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl as she slept next to her mother has been jailed.
Ryan Barrett, 20, of King Henry's Drive, was caught after he was traced via a mobile phone he had stolen from the victim's house and then tried to sell for £30.
Sentencing him at Croydon Crown Court last Thursday, judge Nicholas Ainsley said: "To anybody this would have been a frightening experience. Not just at the time but frightening afterwards.
"What faith can you have in the safety of your home if something like that happens to you?"
Barrett climbed through the window of the girl's mother's home, in New Addington, one night in October 2011.
Prosecuting, Matthew Turner said the schoolgirl victim told police she had fallen asleep watching television on the couch and awoke to find Barrett tugging at her leggings.
He added: "The complainant explained the defendant was standing by her head and said the words 'Open your mouth' and he also undid the zip of his trousers."
Barrett asked the girl to come outside and told her he would show her his genitals, the court heard.
He then went upstairs and stole a BlackBerry phone, before leaving the house. He did not know the victim, whose identity is protected by law.
Laura Herbert, mitigating, asked the judge to send her client on a programme for young sexual offenders rather than to jail.
She said Barrett had felt "distanced from his family" due to his grandmother's death the year before. Now was a critical moment to change his behaviour, she added.
Judge Ainsley said he had taken into account Barrett's youth, but added: "This was a night-time burglary of the house of people who were strangers to you. You have got in through the window and into a room where a mother and daughter were sleeping.
"The child was deliberately approached by you whilst you were in the house for purposes that do not require further description from me."
The 72 days Barrett has spent on tag will be deducted from his three-and-a-half year jail term. He must remain on to the sex offenders register for the next five years.
He pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a child and burglary on the first day of his scheduled trial in October last year.
