A 36-year-old man who admitted to performing an indecent act in front of a young girl was sentenced to a year in prison yesterday. The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to performing an indecent act wilfully without an unlawful excuse in front of a child.

Yesterday in Magistrates' Court, Crown counsel Robert Welling said the nine-year old girl was left in the care of the man, who is a relative, while her mother went to work.

She was alone in the house with the man when the incident happened but ran to a neighbour's house for help. The man followed her and told the neighbour she was scared because she was watching a scary movie.

When he was arrested by Police, the accused admitted to performing an indecent act in front of the girl and said he needed to be locked up.

Later at the Hamilton Police Station, he told officers he exposed himself briefly when he was pulling his hands out of his pants when he saw her coming.

Acting Senior Magistrate Tyrone Chin asked him what possessed him to do this. The defendant said: "I can't answer that. I don't know."

Magistrate Chin asked if he would benefit from sex offender, drug and alcohol and anger management programmes and the defendant said yes. "I applaud you for your forthrightness of this offence. I commend you on your honesty and saving time by not putting this young girl through a trial," Magistrate Chin said.

The defendant received a 12-month prison sentence and 24 months probation. He has to complete drug and alcohol counselling, anger management, sex offenders and cognitive behaviour programmes.