A lifelong criminal who sexually assaulted a woman after conning her into believing he was offering her a job was jailed for six years yesterday.

Gary Wayne Wellman met the homeless woman at the Salvation Army emergency shelter in Hamilton and asked her if she wanted a ?hustle? cleaning an office.

The woman agreed and met Wellman, who was carrying a broom, at the corner of King Street and Reid Street at 7.45 a.m. on September 20 last year.

After asking her if she understood what she was supposed to do and telling her she would be paid $20 an hour for the cleaning, he took her over a fence and into a grassy area behind some offices where he had laid out a blanket.

?The defendant then grabbed her arm and said ?come on you are going to get raped and if you scream I will kill you?,? Crown counsel Anthony Blackman told Acting Puisne Judge Patricia Dangor yesterday.

Wellman, 52 ? who has a criminal record stretching back to 1967 including previous convictions for sexually assaulting and attacking women as well as drugs, motoring, dishonesty and weapons offences ? told the woman to shut up and do as she was told.

Wellman, a crack cocaine addict, then fondled her breasts and performed oral sex on her, but stopped the attack when he walked 15 feet away to urinate.

The woman took advantage of the pause to slip on her jeans and run off into Reid Street where she was helped by a passerby.

Mr. Blackman said these type of attacks struck ?fear and terror into women? and could not be tolerated. He called for a sentence of six years for Wellman, who admitted sexual assault, which included time served.

Mrs. Justice Dangor said: ?This is a serious sexual offence. It is made worse by the fact that it was clearly pre-meditated and clearly planned. You offered a woman a job cleaning an office and she accepted that job. You arranged to meet her in a specific place.

?You backed up that false story by having a broom in your hand and you proceeded to take her out of sight, and threatened her with rape, pushed her to the ground to a blanket that was already there and proceeded to commit the offence.

?This was without doubt a degrading and humiliating act that was no doubt frightening in view of the threat you had made.

?Having read the victim impact statement, the victim remains traumatised by your actions. You are no stranger to court having started in 1967 and you are now 52 years old.

?You have been given chances by the courts in the past but you have continued your criminal activity, using your skill and dishonesty to persuade a woman to go to what she thought was a proper job.

?I am told you have a long-standing drug problem, but you have had plenty of time since (being jailed for indecent assault in 1991) to sort that out.

?The only thing that can be said in your behalf is that you admitted the offence early and pleaded guilty and spared the woman the humiliation and degradation of having to repeat her story again before the jury.?

Wellman?s lawyer Mark Pettingill said he agreed with Mr. Blackman?s call for a six-year sentence for his client.

He said Wellman was truly remorseful and although he had a serious crack addiction, he didn?t use it as an excuse.

?When clean and sober, as in this case, he is a modest, fairly eloquent, caring and articulate individual who, in his own expression, metamorphoses into a Jekyll and Hyde individual as a result of his drug addiction,? said Mr. Pettingill.