A 49-YEAR-OLD man with a learning disability who sexually assaulted a Huddersfield woman has been spared jail.

Instead, a judge has given Michael Coonan a three-year community order.

Coonan will also have to register with the police as a sex offender for the next five years.

Coonan’s victim, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was attacked by him after he persuaded her to go to his home in Quarmby Road, Huddersfield, for tea.

Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday that the woman also suffered from learning difficulties.

And Coonan’s barrister Yunus Valli described it as a tragic case for all parties concerned.

Coonan, who has been remanded in custody for over 200 days, was originally charged with rape, but his guilty plea to sexual assault was accepted by the prosecution at his trial last month.

The rape allegation was ordered to lie on the file.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC was told that Coonan had no previous convictions and a detailed pre-sentence report put forward a constructive suggestion for monitoring him in the community.

The judge noted that Coonan had already served the equivalent of at least an 18-month sentence on remand and he ordered progress reports from the probation service so he could see how the defendant was responding to the community sentence.

Under the terms of the order Coonan will be subject to a night-time curfew for the next six months.

The judge also imposed a sexual offences prevention order which limits his unsupervised contact with other vulnerable people.