Metford man Daniel James Ward appeared in custody in Maitland Local Court yesterday charged with six offences including indecent assault on a person under 16.

Ward’s solicitor, Matthew Unwin, said in addition to suffering “chronic alcoholism”, psychiatric assessments ranked his client within the lowest one per cent of the IQ scale, which limited his ability to comprehend his actions.

“An indecent assault is very serious and there is nothing to say his intellectual disability is so severe that it would impair him from understanding that grabbing a 14-year-old girl in a railway station is wrong or incorrect behaviour,” magistrate Brian Van Zuylen told Maitland Local

Court.

The court heard that Ward was heavily intoxicated when he approached a teenage girl asking if she would have sex for money on January 12, last year.

The girl refused and told the 30-year-old to go away when he grabbed one of her breasts and buttocks and forced her against a wall.

A victim impact statement read to the court said she felt “extremely uncomfortable and angry”.

Ten months later Ward was caught urinating on a bus travelling from Newcastle to Kurri Kurri, again heavily intoxicated. Placed on a bond with strict conditions not to consume alcohol he was found by Maitland police less than a month later walking and urinating in Church Street.

Pleading guilty to all charges Ward, of Wattle Close, was sentenced to 16 months jail with an eight-month non-parole period for indecent assault on a person under 16 and five four-month jail terms for resisting an officer, assaulting an officer, wilful exposure and behaving in an offensive manner.