A PENSIONER was jailed for nine years yesterday for sexually abusing five children.

Cedric Smith, 70, carried out sexual abuse over a 26-year period on four boys and a girl.

Christine Egerton, prosecuting, said that as one child grew up, he moved on to another. The assaults began in 1960 and the victims gave evidence at a week-long trial last month.

Judge Tony Briggs told Smith that the damage he had done to them was incalculable, but they had given their evidence with impressive dignity and restraint.

Smith committed buggery several times against one boy but, during his police interviews and his trial, he denied everything, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Smith, of Marton Road, Middlesbrough, was convicted of 14 sexual offences, including buggery, attempted buggery and indecent assault, between 1960 and 1986.

His barrister, Paul Newcombe, said Smith had suffered from ill health which, with his age, would make his time behind bars harder.

Mr Newcombe also asked the court to take into account the age of the offences and the glimmers of remorse he had shown.

But the judge told Smith: "It's quite plain from seeing the way they gave evidence that the damage you have done is incalculable and their after-effects were perfectly plain when they came to give evidence.

"They all had to give evidence against you, which I may say, they did with impressive dignity and restraint. The fact that you contested matters means that you did not have any mitigation of a guilty plea which would otherwise have reduced the sentence."

Smith was jailed for nine years, ordered to register as a sex offender for life, and banned from working with children or having them under his direct care.