A SHOP manager who groped a 17-year-old girl on her first day at work has been ordered to pay her £1,000 compensation.

The teenager was prescribed sleeping pills and anti-depressants after the incident, and days before the trial opened at Canterbury Crown Court, she was taken to hospital having taken an overdose of anti-depressants because of her anxiety at having to give evidence.

Sudhir Patel, 35, had denied the charge of sexual assault but was found guilty.

The victim had gone into Canterbury looking for work and was offered a one-day trial at LFUK in St George’s Street selling clothes.

Patel, along with another man, were working at the shop, and at one stage Patel and the student were alone together.

He began questioning her about her family but the questions became increasingly lewd and offensive. Although intimidated, the girl did not want to lose the job and told him he should not be asking her such questions, said Anthony Prosser, prosecuting.

She went to the back of the shop to wash her hands and Patel exposed himself to her.

She walked past him, shocked and frightened. Later he asked her to put some hangers out the back.

He followed, grabbed her and tried to kiss her and tried to put his hands down her trousers, before assaulting her. She fled, going to another store where she had worked previously.

When the police arrived, Patel denied the allegations, saying he was waiting outside the shop wondering why the girl had not returned. “I was shocked when I was told about the allegation,” he said.

Yasmin Punjani, defending, said Patel, of East Ilford, Essex, had spent 55 days in custody and had shown remorse and insight into how the victim must have felt. Miss Punjani added: “I ask the court to take into account the effect on his wife and two children.”

Patel was made the subject of a community order with three years’ supervision and told to attend a sex offences treatment programme.

Judge Anthony Webb also ordered Patel to pay compensation.

He told Patel: “You know what she went through on the day and what she went through because you pleaded not guilty and she had to give evidence about the matter.”

Patel will be on the sex offenders’ register for seven years.