Woman sexually molested in Blackpool soup kitchen attack

A woman's life changed for the worse after she was sexually molested in a soup kitchen at Blackpool a judge was told.
Blackpool Magistrates CourtBlackpool Magistrates Court
Blackpool Magistrates Court

In a victim’s impact statement read to the court she stated she would not go out alone and her only social activity now was going to church where she felt safe.

She had also been left bruised and in physical discomfort after the vile attack.

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After the assault at the Amazing Grace Soup Kitchen, Coleridge Road, the woman was so upset she had passed out, falling to the floor in a faint.

Gareth Hawkins, 22, of Peter Street, Blackpool, denied sexual assault but was found guilty of the offence after a trial.

He was sentenced to eight weeks jail suspended for 18 months with up to 25 days rehabilitation to be supervised by the probation service and ordered to pay £100 compensation to his victim with £200 costs plus £80 victims’ surcharge by District Judge Rod Ross sitting at Blackpool Magistrates’ Court.

Hawkins was also put on the Sex Offender’s Register for five years and made the subject of a five year restraining order which bans him from contacting the victim or going within 50 metres of The Amazing Grace Soup Kitchen.

The judge told him: “This was unpleasant and had a very bad effect on the complainant.”

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