A Perth man who violently attacked a nine-year-old girl has been jailed for six months.
Tristan Mitchell was found guilty of the assault after a trial at Perth Sheriff Court.
The 31-year-old grabbed the youngster by the arm, threw her against a radiator and punched her on the leg, all to her injury, at a property in the city’s Letham area in July last year.
In 2016, Mitchell, of Union Street, Perth, was ordered to carry out unpaid work after he slapped a five-year-old boy so hard he left a handprint on his face.
Solicitor David Holmes said his client had “various issues” that he had to deal with.
Disagreed with guilty verdict
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told Mitchell that he had no option but to jail him, after a background report revealed he had not accepted his conviction.
He said: “I have no issue with that. You are entitled to disagree.
“However, this will have an effect on the viable options that I have for sentencing you.
“If your position is that the sheriff got it wrong and ‘I didn’t do it’, then that mindset will always be present.
“There will always be a resentment or resistance to a disposal.”
Sheriff Foulis noted Mitchell had previous convictions for assault and he had breached two community payback orders in the past.
“At the time of this offence, you were 30 and your victim was 21 years younger than you,” he said.
“The only explanation I have for what happened is that you were angry.
“In all circumstances, I am not convinced it is realistic to impose anything other than a custodial sentence.”
Assault five years earlier
In the 2016 case, Mitchell had blamed a “cannabis addiction” for striking the boy at an address in Crieff.
The court was told: “The accused said the child had been badly behaved and he snapped and gave him a slap on the side of the face.”
