A MAN has been jailed for ten years for a string of sex offences including against a young girl.

Gary Seddon from Eldon Close, St Helens wept in the dock of Liverpool Crown Court as Judge David Aubrey QC recounted details of the abuse of the victim which spanned several years.

He said: “I am told you are a broken man. She is a broken woman as a result of what you did.”

Seddon, 46, had denied the offences but was convicted after a trial of seven offences involving sexual assault.

He was cleared of attempting to rape that victim and also acquitted of five charges involving a rape and indecent assault of a different girl when she was aged between nine and 13.

Judge Aubrey queried whether the ten people who had written character references for Seddon would have done so if they had read the victim’s impact statement in which she spoke of having lost her childhood and innocence.

The court heard that Seddon began abusing his victim when she was 13 and it was some years before she revealed her ordeal to the police.

Tom Fitzpatrick defending said that Seddon’s depressive illness has been exacerbated since the offences came to light and he had been on the hospital wing while on remand.

This will be Seddon’s first custodial sentence and he has no previous convictions, he added.

Seddon was ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register for life and the judge also imposed an indefinite Sexual Offences Prevention Order.