Aus: Indian sentenced for assault against minors

A 40-year-old Indian man was on Thursday sentenced to nine months in jail on charges of indecent assault against three minor girls in Australia.

Sivakumar Chidambaram was sentenced in the Victorian County Court to nine months' jail and a two-year community-based order over the attacks on three children, aged five, seven and 10, in October last year, the Age reported on Thursday.

However, Chidambaram would be released immediately as he has already spent 283 days in jail on remand. He pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent assault on a child under 16 and one count of possessing child pornography.

Chidambaram inappropriately touched two sisters while at lunch with their father at a pastor's home in Melbourne's west and a third girl on a bus while her mother waited to meet them at a Melbourne shopping centre. Chidambaram had been in custody at the Melbourne Remand Centre since October last year.

Judge Murphy said the offences were "at the lower end of the scale" but the rights of children to be safe had to be respected by individuals like Chidambaram.

Chidambaram, a computer programmer, arrived in Australia in 1995 for work.