A teenage nursing home worker has been locked up for three years for raping an 86-year-old woman.

Kitchen assistant Maxwell Laycock, then 17, was delivering a Christmas Day cup of tea when he violated her, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Laycock, now 18, of Cleasby Road, Menston, pleaded guilty to a rape offence.

He also admitted sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl, who was working as a kitchen assistant at the nursing home in Ilkley.

The identities of both victims are protected by law.

Judge James Goss QC sentenced Laycock to three years’ detention in a young offender institution.

He branded the rape “vile and shameful,” saying of the elderly victim: “She should not have had to endure the humiliation of your behaviour towards the end of her life.”

Laycock must sign on the sex offenders’ register for an indefinite period.

The judge made a Sexual Offences Prevention Order banning him from paid or voluntary work that would bring him into unsupervised contact with children, elderly people or those with a mental or physical disability.

Prosecutor Richard Gioserano told Bradford Crown Court yesterday that Laycock grabbed and squeezed the girl’s breasts, laughed and walked off.

She could not recall exactly when this was because she did not report it until she found out what Laycock did to his 86-year-old victim.

Mr Gioserano said Laycock took the tea trolley round at 3.30pm on Christmas Day last year. Another staff member saw the trolley standing in a corridor and caught Laycock in the woman’s room.

The next day, the woman told the staff worker what had happened.

She also told her son, who reacted with shock and disbelief.

Laycock’s barrister, Richard Woolfall, said his client was genuinely remorseful.

“He is going to be battling this conviction for the rest of his life, and the stigma attached to it,” he said. Laycock had felt like killing himself afterwards and was ashamed and disgusted.

After the case, Amanda McInnes, of the Crown Prosecution Service West Yorkshire Rape and Serious Sexual Offences Unit said: “It is hard to imagine a greater breach of trust, and the case has understandably caused this lady’s family much anguish. “I hope that today’s sentence goes some way to helping the two victims to recover from their experiences and begin to rebuild their lives.”