A 75-YEAR-OLD man has been jailed for seven years for child sexual abuse in Bradford dating back half a century.

White-haired pensioner, Raymond Lofthouse, had left a dark cloud hanging over the two middle-aged women he molested when they were aged between eight and 11 years old, the trial judge said.

Lofthouse, of Adwalton Green, Drighlington, was convicted by a jury at Bradford Crown Court yesterday of four offences of indecently assaulting his first victim and two counts - of indecent assault and indecency with a child - involving the second woman.

He was cleared of a further eight similar allegations against the two complainants.

Judge David Hatton QC jailed Lofthouse for three years for abusing the older girl and a further four years, to run consecutively, for the offences against the second victim.

He was ordered to sign on the sex offenders' register for life.

Judge Hatton told him: "Your ostensible good character in the many years since the commission of these offences is a marginally mitigating factor but it is counterbalanced by the cloud that you have caused to lower over the heads of those women over the intervening years."

Bespectacled Lofthouse, who wore an open necked blue shirt and a short cream casual jacket, showed no emotion as he was led off to the cells.

The abuse dated back to the mid 1960s when Lofthouse was living in Kingsley Drive, Birkenshaw, Bradford.

He touched the first girl indecently in his bed on a number of occasions, indecently assaulted the second girl and incited her to commit a sex act on him.

"The affect upon your victims was considerable and continues to be so," Judge Hatton said.

The first woman told the court: "He used to invite me to his home for a sleep and I followed like a sheep."

She said she felt embarrassed and ashamed and, until recently, did not want to talk about what Lofthouse had done to her.