Drunk grabbed woman and pinned her down on the settee

Anthony Brocklesby told the woman, “all she needed was the right man” and when her sister fell asleep in the front room he grabbed her and pinned her down on the settee.

Burnley Crown Court heard how Brocklesby began groping the woman, and Francis McEntee, prosecuting, said she described a struggle, before the defendant grabbed her by the neck.

Anthony Brocklesby (Image: Lancs Police)

Mr McEntee said: “He slipped his hands into her knickers before moving them up her body, underneath her top and into her bra.

“She managed to get him off her and went to bed, but the defendant came into the bedroom wearing no top, with his pants round his ankles.

“He tried to grope her again and touched her breasts.

“Her sister, who had woken up, then came into the room and asked what was going on to which he replied, ‘what does it look like’?”

Brocklesby also broke a glass top on the cooker in the kitchen of the house.

Mr McEntee said he was confronted by what he did the following morning but said he couldn’t remember anything, and the matter was reported to the police.

Three days later on April 29, he made threats to the woman and her sister telling them, “you shouldn’t have made the report”, he also said, “if you don’t retract you won’t see your family again and you will pay”.

Paul Cummings, in mitigation, said it was “wholly out of character” for his client and all of this was borne out of alcohol dependency.

Brocklesby, 31, of Mitre Street, Burnley, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault by touching, witness intimidation and criminal damage.

He was jailed for 12 months, given a five year restraining order and placed on the sex offender’s register for 10 years.