A 77-year-old man jailed for sexually abusing two boys almost half a century ago was told by a judge: “The law has a long memory and a long reach.”

Lawrence Eyles would spend his final days alone having to face up to what he did five decades ago, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.

Eyles, of The Green, Overdale Park, Skipton, was imprisoned for 12 months for molesting two boys in the 1960s. The offences came to light only recently when his principal victim, a man who has been married for more than four decades, summoned the resolve to go to the police.

In a letter read by Judge Jonathan Rose, he said he suffered a “45 year prison sentence” because of Eyles’ crimes. “Decades later, he found the strength to confront you – his demon,” the judge told Eyles.

Eyles pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting one boy for about two years in the early 1960s and abusing a second on one occasion later in the decade. Prosecutor Jayne Beckett said the first boy, who was aged 13 to 15, was terrified by the repeated abuse. Eyles told the crying boy: “That is what grown-ups do,” Mrs Beckett told the court.

The pensioner indecently assaulted a second boy on one occasion when he was about 12 in 1967.

Eyles’ barrister, Richard Wright, said he was in poor health and of otherwise good character. His crimes dated back almost 50 years and he had pleaded guilty, a public admission that his victims were telling the truth. “He is being exposed for what he is, and was, and will spend his final days alone in a caravan,” Mr Wright said.

Judge Rose told Eyles: “You and others like you must understand the law’s memory never fades.”

He ordered Eyles to sign on the sex offenders’ register for ten years and made an indefinite Sexual Offences Prevention Order.