Student sexually assaulted woman while she was celebrating her 18th birthday in Preston
An overseas student has been jailed for sexually assaulting a woman while she was out celebrating her 18th birthday in Preston.
Christopher Ugwu was said to have groped his victim in a secluded alleyway in the city centre after the couple had just met through a dating website.
A judge was told the 22-year-old, who was in the UK studying at the University of Central Lancashire, lifted up her skirt and tried to pull her panties down.
When she refused his advances he angrily accused her of being “boring” and told her she was “p***ing him off.”
Judge Darren Preston sentenced him to five months in prison for sexual assault – a term he had already served on remand while waiting for the case to be heard.
But he will stay in custody with the Immigration Service after it was revealed his student visa had expired and his application for asylum had still to be considered.
Prosecution barrister Amanda Johnson told Preston Crown Court that Ugwu was in the country for a four-year course at UCLan and was in his second year when the incident happened.
He had pleaded not guilty to the charge, but he was found guilty by a jury when the case went to trial. He appeared before the Crown Court this week for sentence.
Ugwu, of Glovers Court, Preston, was said to have been in contact with the woman through a dating app and the couple had met up in the city centre as she was out celebrating her 18th birthday. She was “quite drunk”.
The pair went to various bars and eventually, in the early hours, they sat down outside the Guild Hall to talk. Moments later they walked along Lancaster Road towards a nightclub where the woman thought her friends might be.
CCTV showed them turn into Crooked Lane, a “secluded” passageway leading up to Tithebarn Street and the Bus Station.
It was there, said Judge Preston, that Ugwu “groped her, touched her backside, lifter her skirt and tried to pull down her knickers”.
He then turned on her when she refused to go back to his flat. “She feared far worse was going to happen (if she did),” said the judge.
He said the young woman had suffered from anxiety and stress immediately after the assault and it was renewed in the build-up to the trial.
“Her mental health was affected by what you did to her and from putting her through what you did at the trial,” Judge Preston told him.
He described the attack as an “unpleasant incident” and said Ugwu had denied the offence and had continued to do so throughout. He said he had shown no remorse for his actions that night.
“She was quite drunk and to a certain degree you took advantage.”
As a convicted sex offender Ugwu will be required to inform the police of his whereabouts and any change in his circumstances for the next seven years.