A Suffolk hotel manager who “molested” a schoolgirl has been jailed for nine months.

Adam Ali, former manager of the White Horse Hotel in Leiston, took the teenager to his room at the premises and sat on the bed and removed his shoes, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

He invited her to do the same and then put his leg over her while they were on the bed so he was three-quarters over her body, said Nicola May, prosecuting.

He told the 14-year-old: “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kiss you,” but she had panicked and didn’t know what to do, said Miss May.

“She thought if she shouted, she would make the situation worse,” she said.

The court heard that, prior to that incident, Ali had kissed the girl on her neck, hugged her, massaged her shoulders and told her she was good-looking.

Miss May said Ali had received a caution in 2013 for indecently assaulting a 17-year old girl.

Ali, 36, of Parnell Road, Ipswich, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to five offences of sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl in 2019.

In addition to being jailed, Ali was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for ten years and made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order.

Sentencing him, Judge Rupert Overbury accused him of “molesting” the victim of the offences after grooming her.

He said Ali had been put on notice that this sort of behaviour towards girls wasn’t acceptable when he was given an earlier caution for indecent assaulting another teenager.

He said Ali had been “testing the waters to see how far he could go” when he sat on the bed in his room at the White Horse, removed his shoes and invited the girl to do the same.

Joanne Eley, for Ali, said her client had lost his job at the hotel as a result of the publicity the court proceedings had received.

She described Ali as a hard-working family man who had worked in the catering and hospitality industry for many years.

He had been the proprietor and licence holder of the White Horse and had invested £14,000 in stock and equipment.

He was no longer the licence holder and the new landlord didn’t feel it appropriate to employ him because of adverse comments left on the hotel’s Facebook following publicity about the case.

Miss Eley said that friends of Ali and his family had also distanced themselves because of the court proceedings.