A Southside offender, who has been convicted of touching for a sexual purpose a person under the age of 16, still hasn鈥檛 been sentenced.

Although his sentencing hearing had been scheduled to take place last June, it has now been postponed until May 2018.

The Southside man has recently appeared in court to confirm that has retained a new lawyer, and to schedule the sentencing hearing for dates his new lawyer is available.

Meanwhile the offender has been given conditional release (bail).

Although the Ministry of Attorney General could not discuss specific circumstances because this matter is still before the court, commonly imposed bail conditions include abstaining from communicating - directly or indirectly - with any victim, witness or other person identified in the order, as well as refraining from going to any place specified in the order.

Orders requiring an offender to comply with the provisions of the Sex Offender Information Registration Act (SOIRA) are made at the time of sentencing, or after sentencing in some cases. Therefore no SOIRA order has been made against the Southside man in relation to the matter currently before the court.

The offender had originally been charged with four counts, but was only convicted of two - touching for a sexual purpose a person under the age of 16, and communicating with the complainant for the purpose of facilitating his touching for a sexual purpose.

Although he was originally found guilty of sexually assaulting the complainant, this count was stayed by the court based on the 鈥淜ienapple principle,鈥� which prevents an accused person from being convicted of multiple offences arising out of the same incident. He was also found not guilty of criminally harassing the complainant.

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