A MAN has avoided jail after he was convicted of engaging in sexual activity with a 13-year-old girl.

Matthew Watts, of Orchard Way, Kingham, was given a 12-month prison sentence, but Judge Gordon Risius said he would suspend it for two years.

He said that in October 2011 the 35-year-old had indecently touched a young teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Judge Risius told Watts that he had tried to make out the incident was just a “misunderstanding” but the girl had told a counsellor at her school and the matter had been reported to the police.

Tony McGeorge, defending, said the encounter had lasted “somewhere between seconds and minutes”.

He said: “This was a one-off. There is no suggestion that any behaviour like this has ever happened on any other occasion.

“It is difficult to imagine how something that is over and done with so quickly can have such a devastating effect.”

Judge Risius said Watts would also have to complete a sex offenders’ rehabilitation programme and be made subject to a sexual offences prevention order.

He told Watts it was “difficult to detect any real remorse” in him for what he had done.

The judge also praised the police officers who dealt with the case.