A MAN who groomed two young girls before sexually assaulting them has been jailed for 12 years.

Philip Morallee carried out the sex attacks over a ten-year period and bribed the youngsters with money so he could assault them.

Teesside Crown Court heard yesterday how the 37-year-old also threatened the children with violence if they did not submit to his demands.

Adrian Dent, prosecuting, said the charges related to one girl who was indecently assaulted over six years, until September 1996.

Morallee went on to rape and indecently assault the second victim until 2001.

The court heard how the defendant was violent and had been sent on an anger management course.

He had pleaded not guilty to the offences but was convicted by a jury at the same court on December 21.

He was found guilty of four offences of indecently assaulting a child and five counts of rape.

At yesterday's hearing, Morallee, of Proudfoot Drive, Bishop Auckland, County Durham, refused to enter the dock to be sentenced because a neighbour was in the public gallery. The woman agreed to leave the court so the defendant could be sentenced.

His barrister, Anne Richardson, said he continued to maintain his innocence and claimed the girls were lying.

Judge George Moorhouse ordered Morallee be put on the sex offenders' register for life when he is released from prison.

He also made him subject to a sexual offences prevention order, which will ban him from working with children, giving money or gifts to anyone under the age of 18, or having unsupervised contact with youngsters.

The judge told him: "These were very serious matters. You used money as bribes and threats of harm to gain your victims compliance and silence.

"Throughout your trial you said they were lying.

"It is clear that you still do not accept you were responsible for your actions. By your own admission, you are a man who becomes violent at times and I am sure this played a big part in the attacks on these two girls."