A RESTAURANT worker who left a teenager feeling 'scared, worried and upset' after sexually assaulting her has now been handed a restraining order.

Mohammed Ghulam Kibriya, who at the time was working at The Bangla Lounge in Barrow, was jailed for a year back in December 2021.

His Honour Judge Robert Altham called for a review of the sentence in court in order to discuss imposing a restraining order, which was not done at the original sentence hearing, Preston Crown Court was told.

The restraining order has been put in place for five years after the judge agreed with defence counsel Neil Baki that seven years was too long.

The defendant, who is now of Lincolnshire, is not to contact the victim "by any means".

The judge previously said the 53-year-old had abused his position of power as the older man over the teenager - who is granted automatic anonymity for legal reasons - and deemed his original denial of the offence as "troubling".

Kibriya had been messaging the victim in a way that she deemed to be 'him just being friendly' at first.

This led to him conducting inappropriate touching of the victim which he followed up with questions relating to bra size as well as other comments of a sexual nature, the court was told.

At the original sentence hearing, Mr Baki suggested to the court a suspended sentence could help him learn from what he did rather than a short prison sentence which would lead to him coming out of prison and having no change in views.

The judge explained this would make more sense if he had not denied the truthfulness of the offence in the pre-sentence report - and this counted against him.

"I have made it clear to him that the comments he made may have led to him going into custody rather than a suspended sentence,” Mr Baki said back in December.

"For him to have missed this opportunity is very sad indeed.

"There is still opportunity for him to see the error of his ways."

The judge took this into account but decided that the mitigating factors for a suspended sentence did not outweigh the aggravating features and sent him to prison for 12 months.

Kibriya was also required to sign the sex offender’s register.