After expressing his 'deepest and sincerest apologies' to the court, Clinton Morgan will wait another few days to learn his sentence for sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl last year.

In Yukon Supreme Court on Thursday, Crown prosecutor Noel Sinclair argued Morgan, 45, should be sentenced to a jail term of 18 to 24 months followed by three years' probation.

'The offence itself is a very serious one,' Sinclair told Justice Leigh Gower and the court.

Defence lawyer Keith Parkkari, meanwhile, proposed a sentence to be served conditionally in the community for between 14 and 18 months.

Before suggesting Morgan would be a candidate for a conditional sentence, he proposed if a jail term is applied, it should be for around nine months.

Morgan pleaded guilty to the assault earlier this year with a pre-sentence report prepared for yesterday's sentencing hearing.

Further charges of sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching were stayed.

Prior to the arguments for sentencing, Sinclair gave the court a review of the facts of the case going back to December 2005.

Morgan was coming home when a neighbour, the stepfather of the victim, invited him in for a beer.

Already somewhat intoxicated, he entered the home and had a couple of beers with the neighbour who'd invited him in and the neighbour's partner. The child was also there.

As the child became restless while the adults talked, Morgan offered to lend her his DVD player and a movie.

He took her to his place and as she was looking at his movie collection, he picked her up from behind, pulled down her pants and touched her vagina. He then had her touch his crotch area, Sinclair told the court.

The child grabbed the movie and as she was leaving, he told her what had happened was a secret between them.

As the girl came out crying, her mother and stepfather arrived outside the door.

When her mother asked what was wrong, Morgan said there had been a scary movie on TV, with the child quickly countering they hadn't watched a movie.

Morgan also told the girl's stepfather that he had left a pornographic movie on TV that the girl may have seen and been frightened from.

It was only after the girl's mother spoke with her in private that the truth came out.

The young girl initially said she wasn't allowed to tell her 'secret', but when her mother told her there were no secrets between them, the girl told her what happened.

They then went to Whitehorse General Hospital, where the girl again relayed her story to one of the staff there.

Dr. Rao Tadepalli examined her, finding no evidence of forced entry or injury.

Later in the day, Whitehorse RCMP obtained a warrant and arrested Morgan.

He voluntarily gave a statement to police, saying he'd been drinking and could remember stopping by the neighbours' home and going back to lend out his DVD player.

The next thing he told police he remembered was coming back home, taking some medication for back pain.

He said he didn't remember anything about the sexual assault.

In bringing forward his proposal for sentencing, Sinclair pointed to Morgan's criminal record, which includes two previous violent offences of assault and sexual assault.

The young age of the child is particularly aggravating, he said.

Other aggravating factors include that the young girl was directed to keep the assault a secret.

Sinclair suggested the potential exposure to pornography may also be aggravating. Parkkari later said the story Morgan told his neighbour of a porn movie playing on TV was a ruse to explain what may have frightened the child.

Among the mitigating factors, Sinclair pointed to the guilty plea.

Case law, he suggested, suggests the sentence must show a denouncement of the crime as well as deterrence, and that the offender must be separated from society.

Pointing to a victim impact statement by the girl's mother, Sinclair noted issues of trust have arisen where the woman is afraid to leave the child alone with friends.

'That is a natural and I dare say appropriate response,' Sinclair commented, though it can have a chilling effect on the child's developmental opportunities, he added.

The incident also has had a negative impact on the family unit and is described as one of the factors that ended the relationship between the mother and stepfather.

There are also issues around behaviour and the ability for family members to cope with the impacts of the assault, court was told.

The girl's mother also expressed concerns around the counselling she would like to see made available to her daughter.

From the pre-sentence report, Sinclair suggested, Morgan may still have 'some blinders on' in dealing with drinking. The offender needs a highly-structured environment, the Crown prosecutor said.

While Sinclair opposed any conditional sentence, he also stated that if Gower opts for that, the conditions would have to be strict. The family of the victim has been frustrated in seeing Morgan around Whitehorse while the matter's been before the court.

'There needs to be a significant deterrent,' he also noted, suggesting public confidence in the value of conditional sentencing is waning.

In his arguments, Parkkari noted his concerns with the victim impact statement.

He argued the length of the court process was not up to Morgan and that some statements such as those around Morgan's 'frequent' visits to his apartment were an embellishment.

As Parkkari pointed out, Morgan made just a couple of visits to his apartment to pick up some of his items after moving into the Salvation Army's Adult Resource Centre in Hillcrest.

Parkkari also told the court Morgan has been going to territorial alcohol and drug services staff for counselling to deal with his alcohol problem and is willing to take whatever programming is ordered by the court.

His client entered a guilty plea and neither the victim nor her family was required to testify.

Morgan also has letters of reference from supporters in the community.

In addressing the court on his own, Morgan said as a father himself, he would not wish any harm on a child.

'It's caused me a lot of grief,' he said.

Parkkari noted his client tends to be compliant with conditions, as he's lived under some at the adult resource centre.

Both lawyers brought forward case law to argue for their proposed sentences.

Gower is set to deliver his sentence on Wednesday of next week.