‘Pain, distress, anger and anxiety.’

That’s what the survivor of a sexual assault said she felt after she was groped whilst asleep at a student university house in Reading.

Today (July 1) Ashley George, the offender, was spared prison despite being lambasted for sexually assaulting the unconscious woman following a 21st birthday party and night out.

The 26-year-old, of Wimborne Avenue, Redhill, Surrey, was convicted of sexual assault after two trials at Reading Crown Court.

Almost three years after the offence took place in October 2019, George was sentenced at the same court.

Here, it was heard that the junior engineer was at a 21st birthday party with the woman where they had a brief encounter.

After returning from a night out at 3 am, the woman fell asleep on the sofa.

George returned soon after and proceeded to climb onto the sofa behind the woman before kissing her neck.

He then groped the lower part of her body and started to undo his trouser zipper before the woman woke up and ‘realised what was happening.’

George was confronted by his friend and the defendant said he thought the woman was ‘up for it’, but his friend asked how he could believe she was consenting when she was asleep.

The incident was reported to police and George was arrested in January 2020.

In a statement read by prosecutor John Lloyd-Richard, the survivor said: “The assault brought me pain, distress, anger and anxiety.

“The trauma of that evening has been played over and over in my mind and I can not escape it.

“This has turned my world upside down. I cannot look at the world in the same way after the incident.”

Richard Conley, defending, said George was a “decent” and “honourable” man who was “drunk and naive” at the time of the “isolated” incident.

“He wishes to convey his great shame at causing her such anxiety and distress by his actions”, the barrister said.

Reading Crown Court also heard how George ‘accepted he had made a dreadful mistake’ within moments of the incident and that he was ‘desperate to apologise’ to the woman ‘right away.’

Her Honour Judge Campbell said it was a ‘pity’ George’s apologies did not translate to a guilty plea, which would have saved the sexual assault survivor the ‘distress’ of giving evidence at two trials.

She added: “What is difficult to reconcile in this case is that this was not a drunken pass while both of you were awake.

“The other troubling aspect is how far this might have gone.

“You cannot possibly have held the belief that she was consenting.

“She was asleep on a sofa in a room she thought was safe.”

George, who is a father to a son, was handed a 10-month prison sentence suspended for 24 months.

He will have to sign onto the sex offenders register for ten years, take part in alcohol abstinence for six months, undertake 30 rehabilitation activity days and pay the woman £1,000 in compensation.