A man found guilty of indecently assaulting a girl and defiling another has been convicted for three years and six months.

The man cannot be identified by court order.

One of the victims’ mothers reported her partner to the police after her daughter’s friend told her that he had harassed her.

During the investigations, the mother testified she also found out that her partner had also harassed her daughter when she had asked to sleep between the two adults on a stormy winter night.

“Apparently, as I went to the bathroom... he undressed her pyjama and her underwear and began pressing his genitals to her,” she said, adding that when the girl pulled her underpants up, he began to masturbate.

The mother had told the court that she had never suspected about the abuse because the man had two daughters of his own so she assumed that she could trust him.

She had lived with the accused for two years during which he had also been physically aggressive.

When the mother of the other girl testified, she said the two girls had come home and told her that they needed to file a report with the police.

The mother said her daughter had told her that “he sent her to buy a sheet of cardboard and as she was walking to the shop... he went after her and grabbed her from the waist and pressed her towards him”.

The accused had denied the charges lodged against him but he was found guilty of indecent assault, defilement and offending public morals in a public place.

In handing down judgement, Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani Grima said “this punishment is being accorded after the court took in consideration the criminal record of the accused and the fact that this case involves two minor girls and a young female adult and the fact that in the realms of lewd acts, all things being considered, the acts committed on these three females where of a more minor nature”.