Lilly was groped by a stranger at a Sydney festival. When she complained, he hit her.

It’s been seven months since Lilly Perrott was “groped” and punched by a man during a festival in Sydney’s inner west.

The incident left the 24-year-old with a fractured nose and eye socket, and while her bruises have now faded, her anger has not.

Perrott was with her boyfriend at a festival in Newtown in December when she was “sexually harassed by a drunken bigot”.

“He stuck his hand up my dress and groped me on my ass whilst my boyfriend had his arm wrapped around me,” she wrote in an Instagram post on International Women’s Day in March.

“We spun around and called this man out on his disgustingly inappropriate behaviour… He clearly didn’t like being scalded for his foul behaviour and by a woman who had rejected his sexual advances so he punched me right in the face.”

Perrott has since taken the 27-year-old man to court where he was convicted of aggressive assault with malice intent, but a lack of witnesses meant an indecent assault charge was dropped.

Even so, it was a victory for the designer who last week posted a message of defiance for her social media followers.

It clearly struck a nerve because it was liked more than 62,500 times and attracted close to 2,000 comments.

“After two days of court with five witnesses on my side and being interrogated by two smug defence lawyers we successfully got the drunk asshole who assaulted me to take responsibility for his actions as the judge ruled him guilty to aggressive assault with malice intent,” she captioned a photo in which her black eye was on full display.

Perrott described the win as “bittersweet” but said it was a lesson for men not to grab or assault women “because we’ll grab you by your metaphorical balls and squeeze you right back twice as hard.”

After the original post went viral, she thanked commenters for their support in a second post, saying she felt privileged and grateful for the medical, police and legal services which had aided her over the past few months.

“I was assaulted once, but there are millions of women who deal with assault, harassment, domestic violence, rape and so many go unheard, unwitnessed and unresolved every day.

“I can only hope others can get their cases resolved or can muster up enough strength to challenge and stand up to their attacker.”

If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, domestic or family violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.