A MAN was jailed for five years yesterday for sexually abusing a woman and a girl.

During his four-day trial at Teesside Crown Court, 42-year-old Andrew Rycroft, of Tweed Road in Spennymoor, claimed the two victims were lying. The court heard that the victims, who were aged 12 and 20, did not know each other.

The elder one was traced by police investigating allegations made last December by the schoolgirl, said Deborah Sherwin, prosecuting.

The jury found him guilty of three charges of indecent assault on the elder girl between January 1986 and January 1994 and three more indecent assaults and one of indecency with a child, involving the other, between 1996 and last December.