A PENSIONER who groped an eight-year-old girl as she left a Wiltshire pub was disgusted with himself, Swindon Crown Court heard.

Peter Cotter, 73, gestured to the girl and grabbed her bottom as she left the Five Bells in Royal Wootton Bassett with family friends on May 25 last year.

The girl was said to have been distraught after the incident – on one occasion becoming distressed when she saw an elderly man she thought looked like her attacker.

Sentencing Cotter to a 20 month community order, Judge Paul Cook said: “What you did to your eight-year-old victim that day was extremely offensive and disturbing and afterwards she was extremely distressed.

“Inevitably, your actions cause enormous distress to those who love her and care for her.”

Prosecutor Colin Meeke told the court the girl had been at the Five Bells at lunchtime with her parents and family friends.

She had been playing dominoes with her young friends and, when her parents left the pub, she stayed on with family friends. “She was perfectly safe with them, nothing untoward, something they’ve done before,” Mr Meeke said.

The girl was getting ready to leave the pub when Cotter, who was a regular at the pub and had been drinking, grabbed her bottom and squeezed it for around two seconds. A woman who witnessed the indecent assault said: “He seemed to take his time.”

Cotter told the girl he loved her.

Mr Meeke said the incident had had a considerable impact on the youngster. She had been a happy-go-lucky child, but was said to have become extremely distressed when she saw the man by chance at the supermarket and when she spotted another old man who bore a resemblance to him.

The victim’s mother said: “We thought we were safe, in a family environment. We have been distraught this could happen to our daughter in a public place.”

Cotter, of High Street, Royal Wotton Bassett, pleaded guilty at the magistrates’ court to indecent assault by sexual touching.

Chris Smyth, defending, said his client was disgusted and ashamed of his behaviour.

He lived alone since the breakdown of his marriage a decade ago. He was lonely and had no close friends or family.

Cotter could not explain why he had groped the girl, but accepted he did and that it must have caused her and her family considerable upset.

Since the incident he had stopped going to the Five Bells and started drinking at a pub that did not allow children.

He was a man of previous good character. Mr Smyth said: “The first 75 years of his life it would appear have been industrious, family centred. It’s a sad end, is it not, to that life that he has to appear before Swindon Crown Court?”

Judge Cook sentenced him to a 20 month community order with a requirement to complete 30 rehabilitation activity days. A five year sexual harm prevention order bans him from unauthorised contact with under 16s. He must sign onto the sex offenders’ register for five years.