October 2009 Sex attacker, 44, is jailed for five years PLEAS for mercy failed to stop a Lostwithiel man molesting a 14-year-old girl in her bedroom, Exeter Crown Court has heard. David Phillips, 44, was jailed last week for five years for abusing the girl who he knew and who struggled with him after he drunkenly went into her room. Phillips has already been cautioned for exposing himself to a female motorist and had told the police about how he repeatedly did this. The defendant, of Edgcumbe Road, Lostwithiel, pleaded guilty to two offences of sexual assault. He was given a 10-year sexual offences prevention order and put on the Sex Offenders Register for life. Some details of the offence, including the date and how Phillips knew the girl, are not being published in case they identify the victim. Pyjamas Prosecutor Malcolm Galloway said she was asleep and awoke to find the defendant in her room, with his hand down her pyjamas. She told him to stop but he put his hand over her mouth and molested her. Phillips later returned and continued his behaviour, while also making crude sexual requests. “She was telling him to stop and struggling,” said Mr Galloway. “You can imagine the state the young girl was in after this happened. “She felt she couldn’t tell anyone. She was afraid he was in the hallway. She sent a text message to her boyfriend, saying something really bad had happened.” Phillips was arrested after the girl confided in her parents. His victim said, in a statement: “I want to say this has had a bad effect on my life. I used to be lively and active….I feel I want to be on my own.” The court heard Phillips was cautioned in 2003 for outraging public decency after following two women’s vehicle and exposing himself at them while they tried to drive away. Mr Galloway said: “He told police that he had a problem with exposing himself in phone boxes and in his car and asked if help was available.” Defence counsel Nicholas Bradley said his client was remorseful, had never sexually assaulted anyone before, and had pleaded guilty at the earliest possible stage to save the girl further distress. Judge Philip Wassall told Phillips: “It is not possible to estimate the (psychological) damage for the victim. It may take a long time for her to recover.” Officer in the case, Detective Constable John Phillips, said, after sentencing: “My thoughts go out to the girl and her family, who have been through so much suffering because of this. I think the prison sentence reflects the seriousness of this crime.”