A LAUNCESTON man has been given a three-year jail term for drunkenly raping a 13-year-old girl after turning up at her mother's house for sex.
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Justin James Thomas Brooks had been drinking heavily at a party on January 9 before he visited the home of a woman he saw on a sexual basis.
At 5am, he got out of the woman's bed and told her he was going to the toilet.
Instead, he went into her 13-year-old daughter's bedroom.
He later admitted he saw the sleeping girl lying face-down and he poked her, but she did not stir.
He said he ran his hands over her, taking off her lower garments.
He then proceeded to have sexual intercourse with her, which he said was "difficult" due to the amount of alcohol he had consumed.
By that time the girl's mother was out of bed looking for him.
She found Brooks on top of her daughter, who was lying face-down on her bed.
Both were naked from the waist down and she could see Brooks was having sex with the girl.
Police were notified and the rapist made a number of frank admissions later that day.
The victim told police she woke to find Brooks on top of her having sexual intercourse with her.
His lawyer told Launceston's Supreme Court it was largely because of Brooks's admissions that he was charged with rape - "given the girl was asleep when he penetrated her".
In sentencing the maintenance fitter yesterday, Chief Justice Ewan Crawford said the crime was serious and was aggravated by the girl's age.
But he said it was "not a case of violent domination so typical of rapes", because it "seemed he was hoping the girl would consent to sexual activity - and it may well have been that if she had expressed dissent he would have desisted".
" ... it is not the worst example, by any means," he said.
The judge noted Brooks's secure employment, substantial income and lack of prior offences, but said he had been drinking "far too heavily" over the past two years.
He ordered Brooks be eligible for parole after serving 18 months of his sentence and that his name be placed on the sex offender register for four years upon his release.