PENSIONER David Skittrall has been jailed for three and a half years after indecently assaulting a woman with a mental age of eight. The 65-year-old was supposed to be helping to care for the woman with learning difficulties but instead subjected her to a number of sex attacks over a prolonged period of time.

He was told by a judge he had left his victim "angry, mad and sad" at his behaviour.

Skittrall, of Campden Road, Old Walcot, admitted nine counts of indecent assault on the 37-year-old who lived with her father, which were a specimen of the allegations made.

He and the father had known each other all their lives and he had helped to care for her, giving her lifts, washing her hair and later on, bathing her.

"You have no doubt done very good work for the family, but that is where this case begins to go very badly wrong," said the judge at Swindon Crown Court.

"You knew her, you knew her well, you knew her weaknesses, you knew her limitations."

Prosecuting Stacey Turner said that Skittrall was a close friend of the family and had helped in many appropriate ways, such as giving the woman lifts in his car and helping her in the garden.

He would also wash her hair because her father was unable to do so.

"But it became his pastime to visit the family home on evenings when her father was playing skittles," she said.

He would then leave and join her father for a game.

Both visits were when the sexual offences were perpetrated against her over an 18 month period.

They only came to light when she confided in a social worker that she didn't like him "touching her boobies."

When he was arrested he confessed to what he had been doing and admitting taking advantage of her but said he hadn't seduced her.

Emma Easterbrook, for the defendant, told the court that during the time when the assaults were occurring the woman would always greet him with a hug as she had always done before.

She emphasised that the defendant was extremely remorseful for what he had done and was aware of the affect on the victim.

"If he had known about the law of consent he would never had offered to wash her in the first place."

He had lived in the area all his life but he and his wife, who was standing by him, were planning to leave.

But Judge Thomas Longbotham said the pre-sentence report showed that Skittrall thought the woman would have more or less forgotten what had happened and that it would not have any long term effect on her.

An assessment had also put him at a medium risk of reoffending.

Pronouncing sentence he said Skittrall should serve an extra 18 months on licence and be made subject to a sexual offences prevention order banning any contact with the women until further notice.

He was also put on the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely.

Tina Clarke