A KURDISH refugee from Iraq pleaded with a judge not to send him to prison for sexually assaulting a young girl.

Abdullah Jaf had indecently assaulted a 12-year-old girl in a swimming pool shortly after he arrived in the UK from Iraq.

Jaf told the judge that he had originally denied the offence because he was very frightened of what might happen. He said that had he been arrested in Iraq he would have been tortured first and then prosecuted later.

Jaf's barrister said that Jaf had been 18 when he arrived in the UK and was unprepared for Britain's liberal culture.

But his plea fell on deaf ears as Judge Derwin Hope jailed Jaf for four months and ordered him to sign the Sex Offenders' Register for seven years.

Jaf, aged 19, formerly of Radellan Grove, Radcliffe, and now of Burton-on-Trent, admitted at Bolton Crown Court one charge of indecent assault on a 12-year-old girl at Radcliffe swimming baths on May 21 last year. Denis Watson, defending, said that Jaf had fled to the UK last year.

"His father was imprisoned by Saddam Hussein and since the end of the war he has not heard from him. He does not know whether he is alive or dead.

"He fled to this country on March 26 last year and after spending some time in London he was housed in Radcliffe. He had a strict Muslim upbringing. He has never had a girlfriend or any intimate relationship with any woman.

"He comes from a strict environment and found himself living in a totally different culture where girls and women wear much less clothing than he was used to.

"He saw girls and boys being intimate and no one said anything, while in Iraq men and women did not swim together but had separate pools."

Since being granted refugee status, he had enrolled in a college course and had managed to get a job and was not dependent on benefits.

Jaf had been brought up as a strict Muslim where men and women never mixed, he had never had a girlfriend, and swimming pools were always segregated.