The crime of Leonard Phillip Hobson, 53, a church-going family man who grew up within the religious sect The Exclusive Brethren, would today constitute an aggravated sexual assault.

But because Hobson digitally anally penetrated a boy in the 1980s, Hobson pleaded guilty to indecent assault in the Supreme Court in Launceston on Friday.

Hobson had previously received two wholly suspended sentences for seven indecent assaults upon two children in the 1980s.

The Mackay man, formerly of Townsville, had pleaded not guilty to his latest charge in the Launceston Magistrates Court.

Hobson had denied to Queensland police in July 2014 that he knew the victim or had historically employed boys to help him with electrical work.

Crown prosecutor Madeleine Wilson told the Supreme Court that Hobson befriended the boy in the 1980s and offered him electrical work to earn pocket money.

Mrs Wilson said Hobson drove the boy to an isolated location in Northern Tasmania with the promise of an overnight job and plied him with alcohol until he was drunk.

She said Hobson threw the boy over a couch and onto a bed, pulled something over his head, forced him to lie face down, pulled down the boy’s pants and assaulted the boy for about 15 minutes.

The boy was sore and bleeding the next morning, when Hobson threatened him not to tell anyone what happened otherwise he would not get more work.

Justice Stephen Estcourt jailed Hobson for 18 months, wholly suspended for three years, and fined him $5000.

A previous sentencing judge said Hobson’s crimes were ‘‘immature, exploratory and experimental behaviour arising from your upbringing in the sect’’.