A SCHOOL caretaker who sexually abused a seven-year-old girl in the late 1970s has been jailed for three years.

Stephen Oliver, 56, was still a teenager when he took the opportunity to get the youngster to touch him inappropriately as he babysat.

A jury was told he was aged about 16 when he went up to the little girl’s bedroom and told her he was going to ‘teach her something’, before carrying out the abuse.

Oliver, of Clarendon Drive, Royal Wootton Bassett, pleaded not guilty to two counts of indecent assault and two of gross indecency with a child.

Following a week-long trial at Swindon Crown Court the jury of seven women and five men convicted him of all the charges.

Now he and his family face losing their home and he will never be able to work with children again following his release.

Pushpanjali Gohil, prosecuting, said the victim came forward in 2015 following publicity brought about by the Jimmy Savile case.

She told how she was living in a village near Devizes when Oliver would occasionally babysit if her parents went out when she was little.

“On at least two occasions he would come upstairs to her bedroom and he would tell her he was going to teach her a lesson, teach her something, and he would put his tongue in her mouth and French kiss her,” Miss Gohil said.

“She didn’t understand what was happening, she didn’t understand what was going on. But he didn’t stop there.”

She said he then undid her trousers and got her to touch him.

The girl, now a woman in her 40s, said after the second occasion she told him she didn’t want to do it again and he never did.

When the abuse was taking place she said Oliver told her not tell anyone and she kept quiet for a number of years, until she had sex education lessons at school.

After confiding in an older neighbour she told her parents and they got a solicitor friend to write a letter to his family, warning him off.

When he was questioned Oliver, who has also been a foster carer, denied any wrongdoing and even claimed he had never babysat for the girl.

In a victim personal statement the woman said the abuse had lived with her ever since, with the upset of her first sexual experience as a seven-year-old with a babysitter.

She said she was now a mother and over-protective of her children and felt sad that she would cause hurt to another family.

Chris Oswald, defending, said it was important to remember his client was aged 16 at the time of the offending.

He said of the conviction that his client would lose his home, leaving his wife and child needing to find somewhere else to live.

Jailing him, Judge Jason Taylor QC said "You took advantage of your role as a babysitter to gratify your own sexual desires on two separate occasions.

“You robbed her of a significant part of her childhood and her parents' assertion to you in their letter back in 1984, that your actions have not made any mark mentally, could not have been any further from the truth. I read with sadness in her statement the abuse stopped but the trauma never did."

As well as jailing Oliver he also ordered he must register as a sex offender for life and would also be barred from working with children.