A SOUTH Warwickshire man who kissed and fondled a 15-year-old girl after inviting her back to his home has been given a community sentence and ordered to register as a sex offender.

Timothy Spacie, aged 42, of Grafton Lane, Bidford-on-Avon, had pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to indecently assaulting the girl at his home earlier this year.

He entered his plea on the basis that although it was an offence because he knew the girl was under-age, she had consented to what took place.

That was not accepted by the prosecution who alleged he had forced himself on her against her will after meeting her in the street and inviting her back to his home after talking to her about a CD he had there.

But after a hearing on that issue last month Judge Richard Cole said he would sentence Spacie on the basis of the evidence he had given, and the case was then adjourned for a pre-sentence report to be prepared on Spacie.

During that hearing the court heard that after going back to Spacie's home after meeting in the street and talking about a CD, the girl sat on a sofa while Spacie went upstairs.

Giving evidence via a television link from a room away from the court building, the girl said she assumed it was to get the CD, but he did not have one when he returned.

She said he sat next to her and put his arm round her, and then started to kiss her, with 'his tongue down the back of my throat,' despite her attempts to push him away.

She said it went on for about ten minutes before Spacie got up because his son was coming down the stairs and told the boy to go back up.

And she told the court that after returning Spacie knelt in front of her.

"He started putting his hand down my trousers and kissing me. I was trying to push him off, but he was too strong for me. I was scared and just wanted to go home. It felt horrible," she said, adding that she left when Spacie then went upstairs again.

Martin Butterworth, defending, put to her: "Is it not the case that you and he just started to kiss each other and you never once told him to stop." She replied: "No."

But Spacie, who accepted he knew the girl was only 15, insisted that she had been a willing partner and had started kissing him in the house - and he suggested she had engineered the situation before making a complaint.

And the court heard that a man who saw her after she left Spacie's house said she did not appear to be distressed.

At the resumed hearing at Coventry Crown Court, where Judge Cole is now sitting, Spacie was made the subject of a two-year community rehabilitation order and was ordered to pay £200 costs and to register with the police as a sex offender for the next five years.