A CHILD rapist is behind bars awaiting a long prison sentence after a jury today convicted him of a catalogue of terrifying sexual abuse against a young girl.

Paul Holt stood impassively in the dock at Bradford Crown Court this afternoon as guilty verdicts were returned on nine offences of rape of a child under 13 and two charges of sexual assault.

Holt, 31, of Whytecote End, Wyke, Bradford, was told by Judge Robert Bartfield that he will be sentenced on Friday morning.

People in the public gallery were moved to tears when they heard that the abuse had left the girl feeling like "a horrible piece of mud that will always be dirty and disgusting".

"I still feel as though the past will haunt me and that I will always be the girl that was raped," she said in her victim personal statement, read out by prosecuting barrister Philip Standfast.

During the trial, the jury heard that she was eight-years-old when Holt first sexually assaulted her.

He began raping her when she was nine and continued until she confided in her schoolteacher when she was 11.

She said Holt took off his clothes and put his hand over her mouth while raping her.

The girl said she was terrified no one would believe her and she would be left all alone.

She said she hated what Holt was doing to her and would cry afterwards.

In her statement, the girl disclosed: "I was relieved that I finally got it out there and I was finally free of that dirty torture I had to endure, that I never had to do anything bad against my will ever again.

"It felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders - I could finally be free."

She continued: "I thought about suicide and hurting myself, that maybe if I did it would stop. He scared me into a hole and I thought it would go on forever. I just classed myself as a worthless freak."

She told how she plucked up the courage to tell her teacher after a lesson on sex education and keeping safe, which took place the day after Holt had again raped her.

The girl said: "I feel I will never be the same innocent girl.

"My past haunts me and every time I think about this, I feel so disgusting and dirty - it makes me want to be sick.

"I still cry about what has happened and sometimes I feel as though it was my fault...I have nightmares about it, and no matter how much I plead, the nightmares never go away. I just want to scream: it wasn't my fault, I couldn't do anything."

After the case, members of the girl's family welcomed the guilty verdicts and said justice had been done.