A drunken beggar groped a mum-of-two on her own doorstep in a ‘bizarre’ assault after he stopped at her door to ask for directions to the train station or bus stop.

The woman had shielded her young daughter from creep Andrei Sandu after he knocked on her front door in Wheatley on December 6, 2020.

An attempt to work out what the Romanian 21-year-old was saying using website Google Translate failed as he is illiterate. When she switched to a voice translation app on her phone the struggles continued.

He was said to have reached forward to touch her thigh ‘as if removing a piece of fluff’ from her clothing. Later in the exchange he groped the woman over her clothes and in front of her young daughter.

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Mitigating, Peter du Feu told Oxford Crown Court on Thursday: “My first question to him in the cells today was ‘do you want to be deported?’

“He didn’t answer that question but instead said: ‘I am guilty, I am a stupid, guilty man. I have done it and I am very sorry.’”

Jailing him for 18 months, Recorder John Hardy QC told Sandu: “Your counsel with characteristic eloquence accepts that your behaviour was bizarre and inexplicable and no doubt fuelled by drink.

“But the effect it had on this young mother was to destroy her trust not only in you but in others and to make her reluctant to talk to or speak kindly to strangers.”

The effect of the jail sentence was that Sandu would likely be deported, the judge said.

He told the defendant that judges no longer had the power to direct defendants’ deportation but added: “Had I had that power I would have strongly recommended that you be returned to your home.”

The court heard that Sandu grew up in poverty with his six siblings in a two-bedroom home in rural Romania. He was illiterate and, his barrister suggested, might have learning difficulties.

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He came to the UK in search of a better life but became homeless. He had done short stints in jail for minor offences in Humberside and Lincolnshire but had no previous convictions for sexual offending.

Mr du Feu said: “I wish on his behalf, your honour, I could begin to explain what happened on that night.

“He can’t explain it. He has relatively little memory of it because he was very intoxicated. That doesn’t mitigate the offence. We know, if anything, it makes it worse but it perhaps explains his unusual behaviour.”

Sandu, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to sexual assault by touching. He will be a registered sex offender for 10 years.

Welcoming the sentence, PC Curtis Emery said: “This was an in-depth investigation with an aggrieved who managed to work well with officers at a vital time immediately after the incident.

“She gave us valuable information to locate and arrest Sandu, who took advantage of a stranger attempting to help him.

“I hope this sentence gives satisfaction and closure to the victim. Although there are no physical injuries to her, no sentence will ever take away the emotional effect.

“To have a custodial sentence given to an unwitnessed sexual assault, with no forensic opportunities, is a great achievement and has left the victim feeling extremely relieved at the final decision. Sandu fully deserves the sentence given to him.

“This sets an example of the length that Thames Valley Police will go to in order to bring offenders to justice, even in scenarios with very little physical evidence.”

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