A Bradford spiritualist who sexually molested two women during home healing sessions was today beginning an 18-month jail sentence.

A jury at Leeds Crown Court took an hour to find Terrence Wood, 41, guilty on two counts of indecent assault.

He was acquitted on two other charges of assault.

Judge Peter Charlesworth gave Wood, of Heather Grove, Chellow Grange, an 18-month prison sentence on each count to run concurrently. He also ordered that Wood be put on the sex offenders' register for 10 years.

Sentencing him, Judge Charlesworth said: "You have been convicted on clear evidence of two indecent assaults, one upon the 53-year-old lady and one upon a younger lady in her 20s.

"The main benefit of this week's case is that you have been exposed for what you are, a fraud and a sexual predator who has prayed upon these two women, in particular, in a way which has caused them enormous distress and upset."

The court had heard that the assaults took place in a house in Horbury, near Wakefield in June last year

The women each paid £12.50 to spend up to an hour with Wood who said he would carry out spiritualist healing. They then took it in turns to see him in an upstairs bedroom.

During the week-long trial the jury heard how Wood touched the women, claiming to be healing "troubled areas" of their bodies.

But they said he overstepped the mark by making sexual innuendoes and suggestions throughout the sessions.

In mitigation Jonathan Rose said Wood had only used sexual innuendoes to "lighten the atmosphere".

He also said Wood would no longer practice as a healer.

Wood, a former construction site worker, said he had been able to see ghosts as a child which had given him the inspiration to use his talent as a spiritual healer.

In 1995 after conducting a number of sessions at spiritualist churches, he worked as a private medium holding sessions for friends and others.

In 1998 he branched out and began holding more and more one-to-one sessions.