Shop worker jailed for sexually assaulting 11-year-old girl

A newsagent worker who sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl as she shopped for a friend's birthday card has been jailed.

Selvaratnam Muthurajah, 49 of Meadowbank, Berrylands, assaulted the girl during a shift at Best Value in Tudor Drive last October, and was told by a judge today he had caused the child "real psychological damage".

As she looked for a birthday card for a friend, he approached her and suggested a number of cards. He put one in her shopping basket and, as he withdrew his hand, touched her sexually over her clothes, Kingston Crown Court heard today. He touched her a second time after she had moved away into the sweets section, prosecutors said.

In addition to his prison sentence Muthurajah, a father of three who currently works at Asda in Kingston, was also handed a sexual harm prevention order, designed to protect his victim, that excludes him from entering a swathe of the borough. It will not be lifted until the girl leaves full-time education. Rabin Govindarajah, defending, said his client played a "pivotal" part in his family's life and was a role model for his three children. Muthurajah, wearing a shirt and hoodie in the dock, appeared impassive as his sentence was handed down and stood with his arms folded as Judge Tapping read her remarks.

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