Kmart predator 'parent's worst nightmare'

A paedophile was caught masturbating in front of a little girl in a Kmart toy aisle in Perth. Photo / File

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A paedophile who was caught masturbating in front of a little girl in a Kmart toy aisle while he was on bail for sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl has been jailed.

Nathan Gunn, 33, has been sentenced to two years prison by a Western Australia District Court judge who described him as a "parent's … worst nightmare".

But with parole and time served, he could be released by March.

On a July afternoon last year, Gunn was drunk when he went to the Coventry Village shopping complex in Morley, in Perth, and approached the four-year-old girl sitting in a shopping trolley, The West Australian reports.

CCTV footage showed her mother standing just a few metres away looking into a freezer when Gunn exposed his penis and placed it into the young girl's hands. The offence took just 30 seconds. He was arrested, charged and granted bail, but it didn't take long for him to reoffend.

In March this year, a drunk Gunn was wandering the aisles of Kmart when he came across a five-year-old girl in the toy section, at The Square Mirrabooka shopping centre.

The girl had briefly wandered away from her mother and was suddenly confronted with Gunn fondling himself and then sniffing his hands.

He was later spotted in the food court by the victim and fled through a loading bay when approached by security.

"Parents of young children inevitably have to take them to the shops … and they just have no choice but to take their eyes off their children from time to time while they're attending to their shopping," Judge Kate Glancy said.

"I suspect that you fall into the category of parents' pretty worst nightmare.

"They're at the shops going about their business and some drunk man comes up and decides to sexually offend against their children … you commit what can only be regarded by right-thinking people as disgusting offences against very small, very vulnerable children."

Gunn also had a previous conviction for an indecent assault on a child in 2015 but wasn't jailed.