Description
A sex offender raised his hands in a foul-fingered salute to the jury who convicted him of ‘grinding’ on a woman without her consent.
Callum Jarvis told jurors who had remained in court to see the 24-year-old sentenced for sexual assault: “F***ing look at me, at least.”
He made a gesture with his hands and, in a final riposte before storming from the dock, added: “Scumbags.”
Judge Maria Lamb waited until Jarvis had left court, before telling the jury: “Don’t take any notice of that, members of the jury.”
She added, with an eye to the now vacant dock in courtroom three: “You may not have had any appreciated comment from that direction, but you heard one from this direction.” Earlier, she had thanked the jury for their attention to the case.
It was Jarvis’ re-trial, a jury last November having failed to reach a verdict. Following that first trial, the defendant had got himself locked up for more than three-and-a-half-years after he was caught dealing drugs in Banbury. He had, in fact, stormed out of that sentencing hearing as well, after the judge told him it was ‘no good looking surly’.
He had always denied sexually assaulting the victim, who was known to him, by rubbing his stomach and crotch area against the woman’s bottom in what was described in court as a ‘grinding’ manoeuvre.
The woman was assaulted as she looked out of a window of a flat in Banbury, as her brother was outside.
Jarvis had described the allegation, which dated back to May 29, 2020, as ‘bull***t’.
A jury of 12 at Oxford Crown Court took less than two hours to return a unanimous guilty verdict.
In a victim personal statement read by prosecutor Matthew Hodgetts after the verdict, the woman said expressed a fear of what would happen if she bumped into Jarvis or his partner.
“[I] felt as if I was constantly watching my back,” she said. As a result of reporting the assault she had lost her friendship with the defendant’s girlfriend.
Sentencing, Judge Lamb said she had listened to what Jarvis’ barrister, Richard Davies, said about the fact a prison sentence would result in Jarvis being placed on the sex offender register.
But she added, simply: “You are a sexual offender. This was a sexual offence.”
The judge noted that Jarvis had made ‘unpleasant personal remarks’ about his victim before the assault.
She said: “[This was] all about you trying to humiliate this young woman, albeit it was an incident, fortunately, of relatively short duration.”
She sentenced Jarvis, formerly of Telford, Shropshire, to one month's imprisonment, which will be served after the prison term he is currently serving. He will be on the sex offender register for seven years.