A sexual predator who molested and kissed children in Colchester’s city centre has been incarcerated.
Stefan Pritchard’s alarming assaults involved four girls, aged 11 to 14, who were victimised on various dates from July 2021 to June of this year.
A 14-year-old girl, whose buttocks were touched from beneath her skirt by 32-year-old Pritchard, reported experiencing panic attacks as a result of flashbacks.
Judge David Turner KC told Chelmsford Crown Court he feared the sexually-charged incidents were a “manifestation of his inner loneliness and turmoil”.
Pritchard, of Fingringhoe Road, Colchester, admitted four counts of sexual assault on a child, two counts of assaulting an emergency worker and one count of sexual assault of a child aged under 13.
He has been jailed for two years and nine months.
Emma Kutner, prosecuting, said Pritchard’s offending started when he reached up the 14-year-old’s skirt in Queen Street and grabbed her bottom in July 2021.
He then stroked the hair of an 11-year-old and told her she was beautiful as she walked with her mother in September last year.
The following month he hugged a 14-year-old girl from behind and kissed her on the neck, cheek and lips before touching her breast.
Ms Kutner said: “Her friend said she was in shock and was crying. She said she felt anxious and didn’t want to go out.”
Another girl, 13, had her breasts and thighs stroked in North Hill by Pritchard in November 2021.
The sex attacker’s final offence, in June of this year, saw him ask a girl wearing school uniform if she wanted to spend some alone time together, before grabbing the back of her neck and pulling her closer.
The court heard Pritchard lives with a mild disorder impacting his intellectual development, but Judge Turner said: “It is not of an order which could possibly excuse this sort of behaviour.”
He added: “These were unprovoked, gratuitous public gropings and sexual assaults of young women.”
Donal Lawler, mitigating, said: “Given everything he was born into he stood little chance; he is an immensely damaged individual.”
Pritchard was made the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for ten years.
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