A bagpipe player was in jail last this evening after being convicted of molesting a child.

Melvyn Peter Clement, 63, of Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, was found guilty on two counts of indecently assaulting a girl.

The offences were committed between December 1976 and December 1978, when the victim, now a 36-year-old woman, was aged nine and ten.

Earlier in the trial, the victim - who cannot be named for legal reasons - told how she only reported the attacks last October, after seeing Clement with another young girl.

Richard Bennett, prosecuting, told Durham Crown Court how the abuse began with inappropriate comments.

Clement, a former member of the Territorial Army, told his victim how pretty she looked and what nice legs she had.

The first offence took place when Clement, a member of the Underground Mining Machinery Club, lured the girl into a box room at his home.

The second happened when the victim awoke to find Clement, a member of a Scottish pipe band, in her bedroom. He stopped touching her after hearing people coming upstairs, and left.

He told the girl it was "their little secret" and warned her no one would believe her.

She said the assaults only stopped when she was 13 and warned Clement she would "tell on him" if he did not leave her alone.

In evidence, Clement claimed the girl had come onto him when she was 16.

He said the only improper contact between them happened while he and his wife, Margaret, had been going through a bad spell in their marriage.

The couple were sleeping in separate rooms and he alleged his victim had laid on his bed in her night dress and teased him, but he had done nothing about it.

The jury took less than three hours to return unanimous verdicts of guilty on both counts of indecent assault.

The court heard how Clement, who had pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting another girl at an earlier hearing, was in the care of a psychiatric nurse and there were concerns he could be a danger either to himself or others.

Judge Richard Lowden warned Clement that he is facing a jail term. He was remanded in custody, to be sentenced later this year.