A tearful Brent Allison Minors Jr. will spend the next five years in prison after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl nearly two years ago.

Before sentence was passed, however, Minors, 23, of Wellington Back Road, St.

George's, resolutely proclaimed his innocence.

He said: "To myself I feel that this is wrong. I have not done nothing to this little girl. I always respected her, her parents and everybody.'' But his pleas fell on deaf ears as did the request for an adjournment so that a social inquiry report could be prepared.

"I don't see how a social inquiry report is going to help me,'' Chief Justice Austin Ward told defence counsel Elizabeth Christopher.

Ms Christopher said that she was considering whether to appeal the conviction when contacted after the sentencing.

Turning to the defendant, Mr. Justice Ward said: "You were in a position of trust and you abused that trust.

"(The complainant's mother) entrusted them to you to look after and allowed them to go to St. David's with you to pick up a message.

"Instead you took them on a long drive and returned home with them some four hours later.

"Young girls must be protected from the dangers of engaging in sex before they are ready. The courts must be seen to protect them.'' The verdict and subsequent sentence brought the three-day trial to an end.

A central issue in the case is whether Minors had forced himself on the complainant during the early hours of November 5, 1995. Minors testified that he never touched the complainant, who was 14 at the time, and that she came on to him and he refused her overtures and took her home. The complainant and Minors ended up at Rocky Hill Park, St. George's.

While her cousin slept inside the car the complainant followed Minors to an embankment.

After a brief conversation, she said Minors climbed on top of her and forced her to have sexual intercourse. Despite his denials, the complainant, who sat with her family throughout the trial after she gave her tearful account of the incident, maintained that Minors overpowered her that morning and forced her to have sexual intercourse.