The Crown Prosecution Service is to appeal against a judge's decision to sentence a paedophile with a history of similar offences to only three-and-a-half years in jail.

And an inquiry is underway by Bradford Social Services after the man's past record was not revealed to its staff when they carried out checks following warnings about his behaviour by the family of one of his young victims.

CPS case worker Marie Walsh said she was appalled by the judge's leniency towards Terence Bolton, 51, who had attacked three young boys.

And the mums of the youngsters and the police have also condemned the sentence handed out to Bolton, a grandfather, who had befriended their children.

Bolton, of Hazelhurst Court, Laisterdyke, Bradford, admitted two charges of indecency and three of indecent assault against three boys when he appeared at Bradford Crown Court yesterday.

He was sentenced by Judge Robert Taylor who also ordered that he be put on the Sex Offenders' Register for life.

But Bolton, who it was revealed had served a 12-month sentence for similar crimes in 1973, is likely to be free this time next year.

After the case Miss Walsh said: "We are going to appeal to the Court of Appeal. We were so shocked and upset over the sentence. The maximum he could have received was 10 years and we were expecting five or six years."

The boys, who can't be identified for legal reasons and are from a different families, are now aged 12, 11 and six.

The 37-year-old mother of one of them, said: "Terry befriended all our families and gained our trust. Now when I put my six-year-old to bed at night we have to listen to him screaming. He has medicine to go to sleep. He sees a psychologist. Our kids have to live with it."

Another mum, also 37, said: "It was awful sitting in court listening to the things he had done to our children."

Detective Constable Bea Hopwood, of the police's child protection unit at Eccleshill, said: "We are extremely disappointed at the sentence given out by Judge Taylor. What Bolton did was bad enough, but the leniency of the sentence has caused a lot of extra distress."

Mike Stow, assistant director of Bradford Social Services, said inquiries with other agencies did not reveal any information which raised concerns about Mr Bolton following complaints about him by the mother of one of the boys in 1997.

Only when Bolton was arrested in August last year did social workers find out about his past. "The question of the discrepancy in the information provided to social services is now being followed up," he said.

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said they worked closely with social services and used national guidelines when searching people's records.

Bolton befriended all three boys over several years, taking them out gardening, fishing or to the woods.

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