A BINGE drinker has been warned to curb his 12-pint-a-day cider habit after he groped a young mother at his home.
Richard Fleming, 45, went back to his Tiverton home with the 23-year-old after they had been at a pub with friends and assaulted her after she fell asleep.
The victim awoke to find him with a hand down her trousers and was so disgusted that she took ten showers in the next few hours because she felt violated by the assault.
Fleming was threatened with jail and sent on an alcohol treatment course after a Judge at Exeter Crown Court said he was in danger of becoming a sexual predator.
Fleming, of Belmont Road, Tiverton, admitted sexual assault and was jailed for eight months, suspended for two years and ordered to attend alcohol treatment as a condition of supervision. He was put on the sex offenders' register for seven years.
Judge Francis Gilbert, QC, told him: "She was very, very distressed by what you did. You blamed drink and claimed to have no recollection of what you did.
"That almost makes it worse because it suggests when you drink you become an uninhibited sexual predator who doesn't know what he is doing. You work but you are drinking too much, six litres of cider a day and more at weekends."
Nigel Wraith, prosecuting, said the victim had gone back to his home after a drinking session at a pub with friends. She was with her young child and after the toddler fell asleep, she also dozed off on the sofa, where Fleming was also dozing.
Mr Wraith said: "She awoke to find him touching her with his hand down her trousers, in her words, inching his way down. She grabbed hold of him and flung him away from her and told him to stop. He was immediately apologetic. She jumped off the sofa and went to the bathroom.
"She then grabbed her child, left the property, burst into tears and called a friend to get a lift home."
Anna Midgley, defending, asked for credit for Fleming's guilty plea and urged the judge to follow the recommendations of a probation pre sentence report.