The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
A Spalding man who sexually assaulted a woman while she lay asleep has been jailed for two years and four months.
Ashley Bray (27) touched the woman inappropriately after she fell asleep on a sofa, a court was told.
Bray (pictured) denied his motive was sexual but was convicted of the assault by a jury at Lincoln Crown Court.
The jury also convicted Bray of a second charge under the Harassment Act.
Passing sentence Judge Michael Heath told Bray: “That sexual assault was a nasty and despicable act on a woman sound asleep.”
The court heard Bray also filmed the sexual assault on a mobile phone.
Judge Heath told him: “As she lay asleep and wholly oblivious to what you were doing you groped and fondled her.”
The judge added: “You denied to the jury it was sexual, it obviously was.”
Bray, of Green Lane, Spalding, denied the sexual assault on February 14, 2016, and a second charge of harassment. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for ten years and made the subject of a restraining order which prevents him from contacting his victim.
Alison Summers, in mitigation, told the court Bray had no previous convictions of a sexual nature and had never been to prison before.
Miss Summers said: “The first few months of prison are often the hardest.”
