A PROMINENT Perth businessman who was jailed yesterday was told that his explanation of how his DNA came to be on a teenage girl’s breasts had been an attempt to “besmirch her reputation.”

Jailing Farooq Hussain (56), of Pitcullen Crescent, Perth, for 45 months for sexually assaulting two teenage girls, Sheriff Lindsay Foulis said that part of his defence—that he had spat out of disgust after one girl bared her breasts—had alleged she acted in a totally inappropriate fashion.

Sheriff Foulis said that not only had he tried to shift blame onto the girl, he had put them through the ordeal of having to relive the incidents. “As a result of going to trial, the two girls in question were required to give evidence,” he said.

Sentence had been deferred until yesterday on Hussain, a restaurateur and leading member of the Perth Muslim community, for reports which revealed a “misogynistic attitude” towards women and an interest in coerced sexual conduct.

At his trial the jury deliberated for nearly six hours before finding him guilty by majority on all three charges he faced.

The businessman, well-known as a charity fund-raiser, attacked a 14-year-old girl on two occasions while alone with her in Perth flats last year, and a 15-year-old in 2002.

During the week-long trial the court heard tearful and graphic accounts of the sexual assaults from the two girls.

One of them gave her evidence via a video link and the other from behind a screen so they could not see Hussain.

Hussain told the court his saliva was found on the breasts of one girl because he was so “disgusted and degraded” at her lifting up her top that he spat on them.

Yesterday defence solicitor David Holmes said that, despite the convictions, his client maintained he did not carry out the offences. He would seek to persuade Sheriff Foulis that sentencing could be by community disposal due to unusual factors in the case.

Hussain had suffered “humiliation” as a result of the publicity surrounding the conviction but a positive result had been the many testimonials received after the case. People spoke of not recognising Hussain as the same man portrayed in court and they recounted an “extensive list of good deeds.”

The solicitor added that his client had suffered badly from a serious assault in 2001 and that he had struggled to come to terms with this incident and put it behind him.

As a result his business and personal life had suffered since the assault and he did not have the same powers of concentration due to the medication he was on. Mr Holmes said Hussain’s position within the community would never be regained and asked, “What is the benefit to society in imposing on this accused a custodial sentence?”

Sheriff Foulis said Hussain’s position that he had not committed the offences made it difficult to take the impact of the assault on him into account.

“Following trial, the jury found you guilty of three charges of an extremely serious nature,” he said. “They involved indecent assaults by yourself, a man at that time in his 50s, against two girls who at the relevant period were in their early to mid-teens.”

Hussain had “breached and abused” their trust, he said, and he felt the only way to deal with the incidents was by way of a custodial sentence. Hussain was also placed on the sex offenders’ register.

After the case was dealt with, members of one of the victim’s families said they were delighted that the ordeal was at an end and that Hussain had been sent to prison. “It has been an absolute nightmare,” they said.