A GARDENER who sexually assaulted a customer in her bedroom was sentenced to three years in jail.

Peter Barney, 50, was found guilty of assault by penetration by a majority verdict from a jury of seven women and five men at Bournemouth Crown Court.

Over the course of the trial the jury heard how Barney, of Verwood Road, Three Legged Cross, was doing work in the grounds of his victim’s home in October last year.

After asking to use her toilet, he pushed the frightened woman onto her bed and assaulted her, covering her mouth with his.

He claimed the contact was consensual.

The jury was also told that Barney was convicted of indecent assault in similar circumstances in March 2000.

Judge Wiggs sentenced him to three years imprisonment, ordered him to sign the Sex Offenders Register for life, and imposed a Sexual Offences Protection Order barring him from being alone with a woman while working, aside from family, in any home or attached structure.

In mitigation, defence counsel Robert Pawson said Barney’s wife had run away with his nephew a few months before the attack, damaging his standing in the traveller community from which he hails.

He added: “He has kept to the straight and narrow for 13 years now, he has been working hard.

“Mr Barney has a ten-year-old son who has asked to live with his father, and he has spent his entire savings on the court proceedings for this, some £10,000.

“He also has two mentally handicapped sons, aged 34 and 28, and they lived in a static caravan as a family until he could no longer cope with their care.

“Now he visits them three or four times a week at their sheltered accommodation.”

Sentencing Barney, Judge Wiggs, said: “I understand in many ways you have had a lot of difficulties in your life.

“You have worked hard and not found it easy being unable to read and write.

“You have had family difficulties, and children with difficulties to look after, and since 2000 you have not been before a court for any other reason.

“But what you did on this occasion was serious, it was extremely frightening for your victim.

“I am not at all surprised to read in her statement about how she is frightened to look at the trees in her garden or go into her bedroom, you abused her in her own home.”

Passing the order, the judge added: “On two occasions you have committed offences against women in their own home. This must not happen again.”