A SEX attacker who abused a nine-year-old girl has been locked up indefinitely after a judge ruled he was a significant danger.

Geoffrey Bailey will only be released from prison when Parole Board officials consider he no longer poses a serious risk to the public.

Judge Les Spittle imposed the indeterminate sentence after hearing of two sex attacks Bailey carried out in the late 1960s.

The 55-year-old was a teenager when he attempted to rape a shop worker, and tried to drug and indecently assault a woman in an alley.

A court heard that Bailey served four years in Durham Prison and had been out of trouble between his release and his latest offences.

Yesterday, he was sentenced for three sexual assaults on girls - one on a 14-year-old in 2005 and two last year against the nine-year-old.

The 2005 offence was not reported at the time, but a complaint was finally made after the victim's family learnt of Bailey striking again.

Judge Spittle told Bailey, from Chilton, County Durham: "You resurrected your sexual behaviour, and it escalated in 2006.

"You got away with it in 2005 in the sense it was not reported for whatever reason, but I am not privy to all the matters which led to that decision."

Teesside Crown Court heard that drunken Bailey rubbed the teenager's leg on top of her trousers and asked: "Do you like sex?"

Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, said that Bailey had twice indecently touched the younger girl last summer after putting his hand inside her underwear.

The court heard that the married man blamed alcohol for his behaviour, and probation officials thought he failed to understand how serious his offending was.

Jonathan Walker, mitigating, told Judge Spittle: "He recognises what he did was wrong and wishes he could remedy it, but he cannot.

"He has a level of insight and recognition of the impact on those young girls' lives.

"This is not a 55-year-old man who has reverted to type.

"This is a 55-year-old man who, over a relatively short period of time, has acted unlawfully and inappropriately."

In January 1969, Bailey grabbed a 30-year-old in a back street near her home and tried to cover her face with an ether-soaked handkerchief as he forced her to the ground and put his hand up her skirt.

Four months later, he grabbed a shop assistant by the throat and took her into a store room where he tried to rape her after forcing his way behind the counter.

Bailey, of Hambleton Way, had pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault with a child