A man who was jailed for indecent assault by a Manx court would have got a longer sentence if the crime had been committed in the UK.

Willen Alan Kelly was sentenced to 22 months on Wednesday.

The 23-year-old was found to have penetrated the woman while she slept in bed.

He said he was innocent but a jury found him guilty after a trail.

As part of his sentence, Kelly was also ordered to sign and remain on the sex offender register for 10 years, and also notify the authorities if travelling abroad within that same period.

The offence was committed in December 2020, and Kelly had been on bail since his prior court appearance.

A victim impact statement was read out in court which led to Deemster Cook concluding the woman had experienced ‘severe psychological damage’ as a result of the assault.

He pointed out that the statement described the woman as having to go back on antidepressant medication following the assault, having since suffered from panic attacks, and found it difficult to enter into trusting relationships.

The statement also talked of how the woman had held off from applying for a supervisor role at work while the court case was ongoing, with the demand of assessments that this would have entailed.

She spoke of having ‘never felt pain’ like she did when hearing that Kelly had pleaded not guilty, and being ‘very upset’ that the trial was set at a date so far in the future.

She also said that she had ‘felt horrible’ when reporting the offence to the police, and having to appear in the witness box, where she was ‘called a liar’.

By having pleaded not guilty and put the woman through the ‘ordeal’ of a trial and examination in the witness box, Kelly had shown a lack of remorse, Deemster Cook argued.

He explained that he may only have considered a suspended sentence had there been a guilty plea.

Deemster Cook described Kelly, who lives in Doves Croft, Douglas, as ‘still saying it was nothing other than consensual’, and ‘not accepting the jury’s verdict’.

Messages found by police on Kelly’s phone found that he had messaged the woman the day after apologising for what he did and ‘the pain caused’ by it.

A note was also found, taken to be an unsent draft of a message to the woman, where Kelly had written that it was ‘not OK’ to touch her in her sleep.

Defence advocate Ian Kermode conceded that his client was ‘still in denial’, while arguing as mitigating circumstances that Kelly had no previous convictions, was soon to attain a 2:1 degree in business from University College Isle of Man, and that his references showed he was a person of ‘exemplary character’.

He added that a report had found ‘a low level risk of reconviction’.

Deemster Cook noted that when the new Manx Sexual Offences Bill comes into force, the offence Kelly committed would be classified as assault by penetration, as it would have been in the UK.

In the UK, he pointed out that the starting point for sentencing guidelines also would have been six years imprisonment.

A mitigating factor taken into account in the sentence was that Kelly acted as a carer for his mother.

Deemster Cook described the offence as ‘disgusting’, adding that ‘any woman is entitled to say no at any time, you chose to ignore that, perhaps out of naivety’.

He did however concede that the offence was not predatory or malicious.

Deemster Cook commended the woman on her bravery in appearing in court, and said that he hoped the sentence would bring her some closure.