A man found guilty of “chatting up” a 12-year-old schoolgirl has lost an attempt to overturn his conviction.

Desmond Trott, 31, from Sandys, was convicted of intruding on the privacy of a female in connection to an incident on March 1, 2012.

The court had heard that the victim, who cannot be identified, was at the Hamilton Bus Terminal when she was approached by Trott, who was carrying a beer bottle in a paper bag.

He began to speak to the girl, who became uncomfortable and moved to a different section of the station. However, Trott followed her and continued questioning her. The complainant moved away from Trott again and approached a bus dispatcher to complain about the defendant’s behaviour.

Trott was subsequently arrested and later charged with intruding on the privacy of a female. While he maintained his innocence, he was convicted in October 2012 following a Magistrates’ Court trial.

Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo sentenced Trott to two years of probation, noting he had no previous convictions for sexual or violent offences. He also referred to court-ordered reports, which found that Trott had substance abuse and family problems, and that his cognitive functioning was at a “borderline level”.

Trott later launched an appeal against his conviction.

Lawyer Michael Scott, representing Trott, argued in the Supreme Court that the magistrate had erred in law in that he failed to direct his mind to the crucial elements of ‘intruding’ and ‘privacy’, and if the facts found by the court had amounted to intruding on the girl’s privacy.

However, in a written ruling dated on April 10, Chief Justice Ian Kawaley wrote that Mr Tokunbo had found the defendant’s behaviour had been alarming to the victim and set out the factual underpinnings of his findings.

“The appellant, an intoxicated man of around 30 years of age, accosted a 12-year-old schoolgirl whom he did not know, ‘chatted her up’ and followed her when she attempted to escape his unwanted attentions,” the Chief Justice wrote. “She immediately reported her concerns to a person in authority.

“The appellant’s seemingly genuine inability to acknowledge the impropriety of his actions may be attributable in part to an impaired recollection of precisely what transpired, and in part to his documented borderline cognitive function levels.

“His developmental level may well be less than his chronological age. His personal challenges were no doubt taken into account as strong mitigating factors at the sentencing phase.”

The Chief Justice said that while the facts of the case as found by the magistrate may put it near the very bottom of the scale for the law, “In my judgment those facts did support the conviction and the reasoning of the Court below cannot be faulted in any way.”