A PEDESTRIAN has been sentenced for sexually assaulting a lone woman in an underpass near Northwick Park Roundabout.

Krupesh Lauchande squeezed the victim’s breast after approaching her in the tunnel underneath Watford Road, Harrow, which links the front entrance of the hospital and the entrance of the University of Westminster’s Harrow Campus with the route into Harrow town centre.

The 18-year-old, of Bowrons Avenue, Wembley, accosted the woman while crossing with friends from west to east – the opposite direction to the her – through the underpass during the mid afternoon of August 28, 2012.

Lauchande denied sexual assault, but was convicted by a jury at Harrow Crown Court on May 31 and was sentenced at the same court on Friday, June 28.

He was sentenced to six months’ detention in a young offenders’ institution.

He will be placed on the sex offender register for seven years and has been banned from working with children or vulnerable adults.

Co-defendants Rupesh Bava, 18, of Woodstock Road, Wembley; Chintak Jagdish, 19, of Craigmuir Park, Wembley; Akshay Kanji, 18, of Clayton Avenue, Wembley; and Shailesh Sina, 19, of Woodmans Grove, London, Neasden, were all acquitted of sexual assault earlier in the trial.