By News Desk

A paedophile from West London, who threatened to burn down the victim’s house if they reported him to the police has been jailed for three years, according to MyLondon.

33-year-old Jaspreet Singh abused the girl for over two years and would repeatedly touch her and hold her mouth shut to stop her from screaming, the Isleworth Crown Court heard on Thursday, 24 August.

Prosecutor Jose Olivares-Chandler detailed how the victim’s family initially encountered the Wolverhampton man at a Gurdwara in Southall, where they believed he was a devout Sikh.

However, subsequent events unfolded in which the defendant reportedly touched the victim on various parts of her body, including her arms, hands, thighs, and waist. On one occasion, he even sat beside her and touched her ankle, later explaining that his actions were not intended inappropriately, as per the court’s testimony.

MyLondon reported that Singh is an illegal immigrant, who overstayed his visa to stay in the UK. Mr Olivares-Chandler also stated that he put his hand over the victim’s mouth to shut her, and later contacted her by phone, making it seem as if she was his girlfriend and asked her to show her breasts.

The court heard that the victim bravely spoke out and accused Singh in front of her mother, but he denied doing anything immoral.

“He said the victim had taken it the wrong way and he had not touched her in a ‘bad way’,” Mr Olivares-Chandler said. “[The victim’s mum] shouted at the defendant, she was very upset because he had broken their trust between them.”

Singh was arrested soon after the mother was informed. But, he told police the allegations were ‘financially motivated’, describing them as “bull-f******-sh**”, the court was told.

In a victim impact statement, the victim said: “I feel like this whole situation has caused me to lose a bit of me. It feels very difficult to explain how this has affected me because it became normalised. It took me two years to work out what was happening. I think this has taken away part of my childhood.

“I felt like I had no safe place… Jaspreet made multiple attempts to stop me telling my family… Jaspreet even went as far as threatening to burn my house down. He even went as far as threatening to come to my school… Jaspreet told me it was better for my sake and his sake to keep me quiet.”

Defending Nicholas Fuchs said: “It’s a bit of an unusual case because unlike these cases there’s little element of progression. In terms of the erogenous zones, he does not try to touch her breasts, he does not touch between her legs, most of the touching is over the clothes… He seems to be a pest… the nature of the behaviour, it’s really quite strange.”

Initially, Singh denied the charges brought against him. However, he changed his plea to guilty for five of the counts on the indictment later, while two other charges were set aside. Judge Nicholas Wood subsequently sentenced the man to three years in prison, and he has also been placed on the sex offenders register for life.