A 32-year-old sex attacker who raped a schoolgirl after dragging her into bushes at a park has been jailed for eight years.

Alan Pounder, who had been living at the Salvation Army Hostel in Leeds Road, Bradford, carried out the sickening attack on the 15-year-old just days after he was released from a previous prison sentence.

Judge Linda Sutcliffe said Pounder had targeted the schoolgirl, who was a virgin, and said the effect on her was too awful to contemplate.

She said: "First and foremost is the fact that the complainant was only 15 years of age at the time of this incident. Still a schoolgirl - indeed wearing her school uniform - which from comments that were made earlier in the day seems to be the principal reason why she attracted your attentions.

"I take the view it's quite plain you targeted this complainant and that is an aggravating feature of this offence."

Prosecutor Michelle Colborne told Bradford Crown Court yesterday how the drug addict - with 70 previous convictions mostly for theft - had been visiting relatives in the Brighouse area on the day of the offence in June.

"Over the course of the afternoon the defendant was observed by people in Brighouse to be behaving in an overtly sexual way as far as teenage girls were concerned," she said.

Pounder was heard to make derogatory and sexual comments about schoolgirls and it was later that afternoon that he grabbed his victim as she walked through Bramston Park in Rastrick.

Miss Colborne described how the girl screamed and fought after Pounder dragged her into the bushes.

She said: "She continued to scream and was told to stop. The defendant covered her mouth with his hand despite which she persisted in screaming."

Pounder indecently assaulted the terrified youngster before he raped her. He returned to the Bradford hostel after the attack but then went to Leeds where he was arrested a few days later.

When Pounder was quizzed by police he denied being involved, but he was later picked out during identification procedures.

Timothy Stead, for Pounder, said his client's record did not disclose any previous convictions for any sexually-motivated offences and there was only one incident of violence in 1995.

He said Pounder's guilty pleas to the offences of rape and indecent assault had spared the victim the ordeal of coming to court to give evidence and his client now felt disgusted with himself.

In addition to the eight-year jail term, Judge Sutcliffe ordered Pounder to be placed on the sex offenders register for life.