A 48-year-old youth leader who forced his tongue into a young boy’s mouth did so without any “sexual purpose”, his lawyer claimed in court.

Milton Richardson, of Devonshire, was found guilty in March of four counts of touching the schoolboy for a sexual purpose while in a position of trust, kissing him on the mouth, ear and neck.

He is appealing his convictions in the Supreme Court and his lawyer, Michael Scott, told the Chief Justice on Tuesday that the magistrate who convicted Richardson failed to apply the proper legal test to determine if the kisses were sexual in nature.

“The touching itself has to have violated the sexual integrity of the child,” Mr Scott said. “There was no touching of any parts of the young man’s sexual parts of the body, [the] genitalia.”

Mr Scott said: “Kissing, ipso facto, is not sexual — kissing on the mouth or the neck or the cheek.”

He added: “I know that the young complainant felt uncomfortable, disconcerted, by his kisses. But the test is not the victim’s assessment of what happened. The test is for the Crown to prove on an objective status that the touching met the test of serious sexual harm.”

Chief Justice Ian Kawaley corrected Mr Scott on that point, noting that the Crown did not have to prove serious sexual harm for the convictions to stand. He said that it merely had to show, in light of all the circumstances, whether “carnal content” was apparent in the defendant’s behaviour.

“Serious sexual harm is putting the bar far too high,” Mr Justice Kawaley said. “It’s a question of what is the nature of the assault” and what a “reasonable observer” looking on would believe was taking place.

He later pointed out to Mr Scott that in Richardson’s case, the magistrate found there was not only kissing but “moaning”, that the touching happened when no one else was around in “comparatively private circumstances” and that he told the youngster, “You don’t need to tell your mother everything.”

Prosecutor Susan Mulligan said: “All of that is what you expect if someone wanted to sexually exploit a child. The moaning is particularly important.

“It’s a finding of fact. There was a moaning of a sexual nature.”

She added: “The trial judge accepted that the appellant tried to force his tongue inside the child’s mouth.

“One doesn’t normally put their tongue inside a child’s mouth if they are giving a fatherly kiss. I don’t care what culture you are in. I think that’s universal.”

Ms Mulligan asked: “What would be the point of telling the child to glaze over what had actually happened with his mother if it was an innocent purpose?”

She added that although he initially denied kissing the boy on the mouth during his Magistrates’ Court trial, Richardson eventually admitted, under cross-examination, that he may have kissed the side of his mouth.

Earlier, Mr Scott asked the court to consider whether “kissing in Bermuda between men is illegal”.

He said: “The cultural context sometimes becomes involved. Gay behaviour should not be equated with sexual behaviour. Gay persons in this community are entitled to be capable of non-sexual acts.” But the Chief Justice told him that the law did not distinguish in this type of offence between same-sex assaults or assaults involving different genders.

Ms Mulligan said: “If this was a female counsellor with a male child or a female child, it would not matter. It’s not a question of whether it’s appropriate.

“It’s whether the trial judge, in all the circumstances, could reasonably conclude whether there was a sexual purpose here.”

Richardson, a youth group founder, was jailed in June for 18 months for the offences, which took place in January 2013 and involved a boy aged under 13 who attended his club.

Mr Justice Kawaley reserved judgment on the appeal to a later date.