A MAN from Cromhall who was seen shoplifting in a supermarket sexually assaulted the store detective who caught him, a court heard.

Asa Manders, 38, of The Orchards, Bristol Road, Cromhall, put his hand between the woman's legs and groped her, Gloucester Crown Court was told on Friday, May 29.

He admitted sexual assault on the woman but appealed to the court against the sentence he had received from magistrates for the offence.

He had been sentenced to a 16-week jail term suspended for two years and placed under home curfew for three months.

His lawyer Ed Hetherington accepted that the sentence fell within national guidelines and was appropriate, especially as Manders had a previous sexual assault conviction in 2012.

But he argued that because Manders had subsequently been jailed for six months for offences of a different nature the court should now treat him differently.

Judge William Hart said: "The principal point advanced on his behalf is that on February 2 this year at Bristol Crown Court for other matters not of a sexual nature he was sentenced to 26 weeks imprisonment.

"We are asked to ask ourselves: if we had been dealing with all matters at the same time would the court have imposed a longer term?

"Our view is that had we been sitting in the crown court in Bristol on the February 2 and dealt with the sexual assault as well as the other matters we would have imposed a relatively short custodial sentence consecutive to the 26 weeks.

"It is within our power to do that now but we take the view that would be unfair to him in all the circumstances. We cannot conclude that the court which sentenced him acted in any way inappropriately. We find nothing wrong with the length of sentence that was suspended or the period of suspension."

The judge dismissed Manders' appeal with the exception of lifting the curfew as he is now in prison.