A MAN who repeatedly indulged in sexual activity with a young girl was yesterday sent to prison for eight years.

The sentence was imposed on 41-year-old Alan Brown after he was convicted of 11 offences, including four of rape, on the same girl. He will also be on the sex offenders' register for life.

Durham Crown Court was told that the offences had taken place over two years up to last October, when the girl was aged between 12 and 14.

Amanda Rippon, prosecuting, said Brown interfered with her so many times that she regarded it as "normal".

Later, she took part in the activity without being asked.

But even if she did not always object, by law it is impossible for a girl of her age to consent to such behaviour, the court heard.

Brown eventually told the girl that he was falling in love with her, but she confided in a school friend after she was physically hurt by one of the rapes.

She also told her parents what was happening when they challenged her about the suitability of a boy she was seeing.

Brown, a plumber and gas fitter, of Doniston Grove, Peterlee, County Durham, had denied the four rape charges, four of indecent assault and three of sexual activity with a child.

Earlier, he told the court: "I'm innocent of all the charges brought against me. I have never had any sexual contact with the girl or touched her intimately."

But he was convicted by a jury after 90 minutes' deliberation on the third day of his trial yesterday.

After the verdict, defence barrister Don MacFaul said: "Everyone involved in this case is now left to pick up the pieces."

He added: "There's nothing in his history or record of this nature and there was no force used."

Jailing him, Judge Richard Lowden told Brown: "This girl wrote in her diary that you had taken away her innocence, and you did that over a period of years by taking out your sexual urges on her.

"She will bear the scars for the rest of her life."