A 49-YEAR-OLD man has been jailed for 22 years for the "savage and depraved" sexual abuse of a little boy and two young girls.

Darren Holmes showed no emotion yesterday as he was led down to the cells from the dock at Bradford Crown Court after he was found guilty of nine offences, including rape and repeated buggery.

Judge David Hatton QC told him: "The sickening behaviour in which you engaged can be met only with a significant term of imprisonment."

During the trial, the jury heard that Holmes, of Manningham Lane, Bradford, preyed on a boy aged four to seven in the early 1990s.

Sentencing Holmes, Judge Hatton told him: "It was a sustained course of savagery in which you committed repeated acts of buggery on him. He was threatened and you instilled fear into him.

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"He longed for help and release from the torment - and you, his tormentor."

Holmes was imprisoned for a total of 12 years for two offences of buggery, indecency with a child and indecent assault on a male person.

He was imprisoned for 12 months for repeatedly groping and fondling a girl aged 13 in 2007.

"You had the gall and hypocrisy to castigate her for her sexualised behaviour," the judge said.

Holmes then went on to defile a 12-year-old girl.

"You raped her, believing her to be asleep. It was brief but its brevity doesn't diminish its savagery or its depravity," Judge Hatton told him.

Holmes then went on to further sexually assault the child.

He was jailed for a total of nine years for that abuse, all the sentences to run consecutively.

The little boy first accused Holmes of abuse more than two decades ago.

He was sickened by it and would try to hide from him.

The child told his mother and the police were alerted. Holmes was arrested and interviewed but a decision was made not to prosecute him.

The boy, now an adult, was contacted again by the police when they were investigating allegations that Holmes had raped and abused the 12-year-old girl.

Her mother contacted the police after reading a message by her daughter on Facebook saying she was very upset by what had happened.

That inquiry led to the second girl coming forward to say Holmes had abused her three years earlier.

Holmes' male victim told the jury the traumatic experiences were embedded in his mind.

Now approaching 30, he said: "I didn't find it easy to talk about it, I never have.

"I remember how things felt, how it affected me emotionally."

Holmes was ordered to sign on the sex offenders' register for life and an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order bans him from contacting his victims and having any supervised contact with children.

Judge Hatton labelled Holmes "an offender of particular concern" and ordered that he spends at least 11 years behind bars and for up to 22 years, unless and until the Parole Board deems him safe to release.