A "loner" has escaped jail after admitting "absent-mindedly" indecently assaulting a teenage boy

Philip Elwell, 33, was told by a Chelmsford Crown Court judge he had violated the trust of a youngster "powerless to resist his advances"

Judge Chris Ball QC ordered him to complete a three-year community rehabilitation order and attend a sex offenders' programme for 136 days.

He will remain on the sex offenders' register for five years and has been banned from working with children under 16 for ten years.

Elwell refused to comment as he left court.

The court heard Elwell claimed his behaviour was "rash" and he did not know why it had happened.

Stephanie Farrimond, prosecuting, said although Elwell initially denied the charges, he later admitted: "I absent-mindedly did something. I cannot have been responsible for my actions. It is worrying."

Elwell, of Berechurch Hall Road, Colchester, admitted indecently assaulting a boy aged under 14 on April 19 last year. He also admitted two charges of sexual activity with the same boy on May 24 and June 14 last year.

Nine charges of indecent assault were left on the file after Elwell denied them. He also denied two other charges of sexual assault on the same boy on May 24 and June 14 last year.

The prosecution offered no evidence on these charges at an earlier hearing and not guilty verdicts were entered.

Ros Mandil-Wade, mitigating, said: "He is not a worldly, vivacious, outward-going young man.

"He is very much a loner, very much wound up in his music, somebody who does not have an outside circle of friends and for someone his age that is a very sad feature of his life."

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Published Tuesday, February 22, 2005

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