A MAN who indecently assaulted two young girls 25 years apart has been jailed for 18 months.

Melvyn Peter Clement, 58, of Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, a Scottish pipe band member and former Territorial Army member, had denied but was found guilty of offences committed between 1976 and 1978.

He admitted similar offences against another girl last year.

Graeme Gaston, prosecuting, told Durham Crown Court how the first victim, now in her 30s, was indecently assaulted by Clement when she went to his house at about the age of ten and 11.

One time it happened in a box room when he stroked her leg and thighs, and on another occasion during a party when she was in bed and he touched her after lifting her nightdress. He also made her touch him.

Last October, the second victim, who was about 11, said Clement rubbed between her legs over her clothing and also put his hand inside her trousers.

Anne Richardson, in mitigation, said Clement had not used violence, was not a predatory paedophile and had been suffering from chronic depression.

She said he had admitted the offences against the second girl at the earliest opportunity to spare her having to go to court to give evidence.

Although the offences were traumatic for the victims they were at the lower end of the scale.

She described him as an "essentially good man" whose fall from grace had been hard and that his wife's continuing support was a "shining beacon in a dark, dark world''.

Being remanded in prison since his conviction for the first offences had exacerbated his problems, she said, adding that Clement was highly motivated to receive treatment for his problems and urged as short a prison sentence as possible.

Richard Lowden, Honorary Judicial Recorder of Durham, said the offences were so serious that prison was the only sentence that could be passed, although he took into account mitigating factors.

Clement was jailed for 18 months concurrently and given an extended term of release on licence of two years so he can receive treatment.

He was placed on the sex offenders' register for ten years and was also given an indefinite ban on working with children.