December 2006 Man jailed for sex attack on girl A man who sexually assaulted a four-year-old girl after taking her to buy sweets has been jailed. At the High Court in Edinburgh, Leigh Anderson, 31, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years for carrying out the attack at his Falkirk home. Judge Lord Menzies, who placed Anderson on the sex offenders’ register, branded the crime on 22 July this year a “very serious breach of trust”. Anderson was said to have a low IQ and could not explain his actions. The High Court in Edinburgh had earlier heard that the victim and her mother had been visiting a friend in the area and Anderson was in the house they had gone to. The girl accompanied him when he went out to the shop. Lord Menzies heard the subsequent sex attack, at the house where Anderson lived alone, had shattered the victim’s mother and the local community. Anderson later confessed to police and pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity to one charge of sexual assault. Paul Nelson, defending, said his client had shown a limited understanding of the effect his behaviour had and he was unable to explain properly why the offence had occurred. The court heard he had an IQ of between 76 and 87, placing him in the lowest population bracket. The judge passed an extended sentence of 10-and-a-half years in total, meaning that the sex offender will be supervised for a further four years after his eventual release from jail. Lord Menzies said he took into account Anderson’s expression of remorse, his early admission of guilt, his lack of similar previous convictions and the fact there was no prolonged course of abuse. He added: “These are the only factors that appear to me to be in any way mitigatory. On the other hand, this was a very serious breach of trust.” The judge warned Anderson, who is listed as a prisoner at Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow, that he would have been locked up for eight years if he had not pleaded guilty early on.