The sentence and conviction of former youth leader Milton Richardson has been upheld by the Court of Appeal, with the conviction described as unimpeachable.

Richardson, 48, was found guilty of touching a boy under the age of 13 for a sexual purpose after a trial in the Magistrates’ Court.

The court heard that sometime between January 5 and 12, 2013, Richardson kissed a boy on the neck. On January 19, 2013, he kissed the same boy’s ear, neck and mouth — attempting to push his tongue into the boy’s mouth, forcing him to clench his teeth shut.

During the trial, the boy disputed suggestions that any aspect of his story was fabricated.

Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo imposed a sentence of 18 months in prison, comprised of nine months on the first count and 18 months concurrent on the other three counts, followed by two years’ probation with a condition that he did not have unsupervised care of any minor.

Richardson appealed against his sentence and conviction to the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Ian Kawaley upheld the conviction but reduced the sentence to 12 months’ imprisonment — six months concurrent on counts one to three and six months consecutive on count four.

Richardson was released from prison because he had already served two thirds of his sentence.

The matter appeared before the Court of Appeal earlier this year. Richardson again tried to overturn his conviction, while the Director of Public Prosecutions appealed to again increase the “manifestly inadequate” sentence.

The Court announced last month that it had dismissed both applications. In their recently released reasons for their decision, Court of Appeal president Justice Sir Scott Baker wrote that the conviction was unimpeachable.

“The Magistrate had a good opportunity to assess the credibility of the appellant and the victim,” the ruling stated. “He was most unimpressed with the former and impressed with the latter.

“The outcome of this case turned on whom the Magistrate believed and one of the matters that the Magistrate regarded as relevant on this was things that the appellant said in evidence that were never put to [the complainant] or his brother in cross-examination, the implication being that he was making things up in the course of his evidence.

“There was ample evidence on which the Magistrate could conclude that the appellant’s attention to the victim was more than innocent and normal, and that the kissing and use of his tongue was for a sexual purpose.”

Prosecutor Cindy Clarke had argued that the sentence for the offences should have been higher because the relevant sentencing guidelines did not follow the “mathematical approach” otherwise described, but the Court found that the guidelines themselves were more important than how the figures were reached.

“Our approach to sentence in the present case is to start with the relevant guidelines where the range is one to six months’ custody if the victim is under 14, but this was a bad case and the offences occurred on two quite separate occasions,” the written reasons stated.

The judges noted the victim’s age, the lack of a guilty plea and that there was a breach of trust and premeditation, adding: “The only mitigating factor was the appellant’s previous good character.

“The total sentence imposed by the magistrate was the appropriate one. We would have imposed concurrent sentences of six months on the first three offences with a consecutive sentence of 12 months on the count involving the tongue in the mouth.

“However, bearing in mind that the appellant has already served the sentence imposed and the element of what is sometimes called double jeopardy, it would not be right to send the appellant back to prison to serve a further six months.”