A PENSIONER who sexually assaulted a young girl has been told by a judge the emotional damage was more than he could ever have caused with any physical injury.

John White, 69, repeatedly abused the child in a shed at his home in Bicester.

Oxford Crown Court heard that he bribed his victim to come into the shed by promising to show her his runner beans. He then told her what had happened was a secret and that she should not tell anyone.

Jailing him for six years, Judge Bruce McIntyre said: “If you had physically injured her in such a way that led her to be crippled and she could not walk for the rest of her life, that sort of injury is fairly easy to understand, both from her point of view, from others involved, her family’s point of view, and you can see what’s happened to her and therefore the care is easier.

“What you’ve done is, in a way, more serious, because you have damaged her emotionally.

“That’s very much more difficult to get to the bottom of.

“That emotional harm is likely to last for a long time.”

Peter Coombe, prosecuting, said the attacks came to light after the girl told her mother about what she referred to as “the rubbing game” which White played with her.

His semen was subsequently found in her underwear.

Mr Coombe said: “In his first police interview he gave some convoluted story about having to pull her knickers up when she went to the toilet.

“He claimed he was impotent and didn’t have sexual urges.”

White said nothing during a second police interview.

He admitted three charges of sexual assault on a child under 13 at an earlier court hearing.

Three charges of rape – which White denied – were ordered to lie on the file.

Graham Bennett, defending, said on Friday: “My client cannot undo the harm that he has caused to the complainant and everyone associated with this case.”

Referring to the harm done to the girl by the attacks, Judge McIntyre said: “How long that will go on – at school, with emotional attachments, boys, girls? I don’t know.

“They are dreadful offences. They would have been bad enough were they against a girl of 18 but you have committed them against a little girl, who would hardly have know what was going on and certainly was not in any position to resist or prevent you from doing what you did.”

White must sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for life and will be prevented from living with a mile of the victim after his release from prison.

tairs@oxfordmail.co.uk