A MAN from Gwynedd who kissed a young girl on the lips in a pub in Llandudno Junction has been spared jail.

Gethin Jones, 39, of Terfyn Terrace, Y Felinheli, was sentenced to 35 weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, at Mold Crown Court today (September 19).

He had previously admitted assaulting a girl under 13 by touching.

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Prosecuting, Mark Connor told the court that, on the afternoon of April 18, 2023, Jones was at The Old Station Hotel in Llandudno Junction when he appeared “drunk” and was “behaving in an inappropriate manner”.

His behaviour made the girl’s relatives feel “uncomfortable”, and he was asked by them to leave them alone.

In response to this, he belched in one of the girl’s relative’s faces, before stumbling back to an adjacent table.

Jones was described as then being “inappropriately tactile” with the girl, parting her hair and calling her “cute” and “beautiful”.

He then leaned over and asked the girl to “give him a kiss”, before kissing her on the lips despite a relative telling him “absolutely not”.

A member of staff intervened and had to hold Jones back due to his aggression; he later told the girl’s relatives: “don’t make me out to be something I’m not”, before smashing his pint glass outside the pub.

Defending Jones, who had 17 previous convictions for 41 offences, John Wyn Williams accepted his offence had crossed the custody threshold.

But he asked if a suspended sentence, with conditions attached, could be passed, which could “address any future offending” and keep Jones “on the straight and narrow”.

Jones had not re-offended since this incident, and was said to have been engaging well with the probation service.

Sentencing, Judge Timothy Petts told Jones: “The realistic prospect of rehabilitation outweighs the need for immediate custody as punishment”.

He ordered Jones to complete 100 hours of unpaid work, a three-month alcohol treatment requirement, 45 days’ rehabilitation activity, and a 45-session “Horizon” programme.

Jones will also adhere to sex offenders register notification requirements for a decade, and a restraining order for five years, and will pay a statutory surcharge.

Judge Petts told him: “For the next 18 months, you’ve got a 35-week prison sentence hanging over you.

“But if you stay out of trouble and do the work, that will be the end of it.”