Sentence suspended

A 25-year-old Ballymoney, Co Antrim, man, freed on a two-year suspended jail term for sexually assaulting a woman clasped his…

A 25-year-old Ballymoney, Co Antrim, man, freed on a two-year suspended jail term for sexually assaulting a woman clasped his hands in delight as he leapt smiling from the dock of Belfast Crown Court yesterday to sign on the RUC's sex offenders' register for the next five years. Judge Patrick Markey told fatherof-two David Nixon of Knock Road, that but for his guilty plea he would have gone straight to jail. Afterwards his victim and her family said they were happy enough with the sentence. "He has now been stamped, marked, and people now know him with what he is, a sex offender and if he does the same thing again, he knows where he's going, jail," they added.