AN Exeter woman and her family have helped save her boyfriend from prison for "trying it on" with a sleeping woman whose home he walked into.

Cyril Jury, 19, of Ashleigh Mount Road, Redhills, Exeter, was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for two years, at Exeter Crown Court.

Jury had been acquitted of entering the woman's home with the intention of committing a sexual offence, but convicted of an alternative, lesser offence of sexual assault, having denied both charges.

The shocked woman had woken to find Jury, who was only an acquaintance, standing by her bed stroking her thigh, before he fled, in an incident in Bideford in March last year.

Judge Philip Wassall imposed the suspended sentence after being told that Jury had drastically changed his life after moving to Exeter, having met his girlfriend from the city while he was competing in BMX cycle racing. The judge told him: "You are an immature person, given the people you were mixing with around the time of the offence."

Jury was also given a two-year supervision order, including alcohol awareness, 80 hours of unpaid work in the community in the next year and a two-year restraining order to stay away from the victim's garden and home.

He was also put on the Sex Offender Register for five years.

Judge Philip Wassall said the sentence would protect society and the victim, who had been left terrified by the intrusion on her privacy, more than the short prison term that Jury would receive under legal guidelines.

This was because Jury had served the equivalent of a year in prison on remand and then electronically tagged on bail.

Judge Wassall told him: "The jury on the clearest possible evidence found you had sexually assaulted this lady as she lay asleep on her bed, completely unaware you were in her home. Whatever your intention on entering her home, you formed the view in your drunken state that you would try it on with her."

Prosecutor David Sapiecha, at sentencing, said: "Clearly the victim felt strongly enough to come to court… one will recall her shock at the time, as described by witnesses."

Defence counsel Richard Crabb said it was an "opportunistic" crime after Jury walked into the house for an unknown reason.

He said: "In the past 18 months, he has turned his life around." Mr Crabb said Jury had met his girlfriend from Exeter, while competing in BMX racing, and had moved to the city.

Jury had a criminal record for violence but had stayed out of trouble since this incident, had good work references and his girlfriend and her family were a good influence on him.