Asylum seeker who exposed himself to young schoolgirls is jailed for four months
An asylum seeker was jailed today for exposing his genitals in front of two schoolgirls in Belfast.
Mouhssine Tlemcani, 38, also threw a bottle of water at the alarmed victims when they challenged him, prosecutors said.
He was sentenced to four months in prison and put on the sex offenders register for up to seven years.
Tlemcani, of Antrim Road in Newtownabbey, pleaded guilty to exposure and two counts of common assault.
Belfast Magistrates’ Court heard he was arrested after police were alerted to the incident at Jerusalem Street in the south of the city on July 24 this year.
Crown counsel said: “(Officers) viewed a video showing the defendant exposing his penis in the presence of two minors aged 12 and 14.
“Both of them were females and it caused them alarm and distress.”
The prosecutor added: “When challenged by the females he threw a full bottle of water at them.”
Defence barrister Luke Curran argued there was no apparent sexual motivation for Tlemcani’s drunken behaviour.
"Such was the defendant’s intoxicated state that he can’t even recall the events,” he said.
“It would appear he had gone to the toilet and then didn’t pull his trousers back up again, causing people in the area to see his state of undress.”
Mr Curran accepted the incident was “terrible and distressing” for witnesses.
“When videoed he threw a plastic bottle in the general direction of those who were videoing him which thankfully didn’t make contact,” he added.
“But there does not appear to have been any intention that people, let alone young people, would see him.”
The court heard Tlemcani was the victim of “horrendous events” in his undisclosed native country and lodged a claim for asylum after arriving in the United Kingdom in 2021.
With no previous history of sexual offending, Mr Curran said the defendant is remorseful and ashamed of his actions.
However, District Judge George Conner rejected a suggestion that Tlemcani could be sentenced to probation.
Imposing four months' custody and placing him on the sex offenders’ register, Mr Conner stressed: “There were two young girls, it would have been a frightening experience.”