A retired lorry driver has been jailed for ten years for sexually abusing two young girls, including trying to rape one of them.

Alan Harris, 72, of Waterloo Road, Brighouse, was sentenced yesterday after a jury at Bradford Crown Court found him guilty of molesting his victims in the 1970s and 1980s.

During the trial the jury was told that one girl was 11-years-old when Harris began to abuse her.

He was cleared of raping her but convicted of attempted rape, indecent assault and indecency with a child.

Harris pleaded guilty during his trial to a separate single allegation that he indecently assaulted a girl aged 15.

Recorder Graham Hyland QC said the abuse spanned a period from 1975 to 1984.

Of the first girl, the judge stated: “You subjected her, over a number of years, starting when she was 11, to systematic abuse.

The victim, now a woman in her 40s, had her childhood blighted and was still suffering today from what Harris had done to her.

He then indecently assaulted another girl on a single occasion.

In mitigation, Harris’s barrister, Gillian Batts, said he had a sick wife who was too poorly to visit him in jail.

He had said goodbye to her knowing he might never be able to see her again.

After the case, Detective Chief Inspector Terry Long, of Calderdale CID, said justice had caught up with Harris almost four decades after he began a catalogue of sexual abuse.

He told the Telegraph & Argus: “With the passage of time, Harris might have thought he had got away with the offences but officers have painstakingly investigated the allegations and brought him to justice.

“Victims should be safe in the knowledge that we take all allegations of sexual assault seriously and have a dedicated unit of specially-trained officers ready to investigate.

“The case also shows how we will always investigate allegations, however old they are.

“Harris now has a long time in prison to consider the consequences of his actions.”