A DEPRAVED horror writer has been jailed for more than four years for sexually abusing a four-year-old Bradford girl while on police bail for hoarding child pornography.

Karl Jones, whose sexually explicit crime novels include Forbidden Desires and Dark Souls, Dark Deeds, molested the girl in the bathroom at her home, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.

She used a teddy bear to show the police how he pulled at her body "like he was going to tear her" after touching her indecently.

Jones, 36, markets himself as "exploring the dark side of humanity" with his lurid tales of depravity.

He was imprisoned for 49 months for sexually assaulting the child and possession of indecent images of children.

West Yorkshire Police arrested Jones after the girl told her mother he had molested her and squeezed her tightly while she was on the toilet.

He was on police bail at the time for hoarding child pornography in the south of England.

Prosecutor David Gordon said the girl's mother had been concerned about the "sexual and fetishist stories" Jones published but learned to trust him.

In September last year, Jones was sentenced to a three year community order for possession of indecent images of children.

Neither his probation officer nor the judge at Bournemouth Crown Court knew he was being investigated for abusing the girl in Bradford.

Jones, of Belluton Road, Bristol, had hundreds of child porn images on his laptop, computer disks and hard drives at addresses in Bournemouth and Kent.

The police were alerted after he was told to leave his lodgings in Bournemouth by his landlady because she was concerned about his interest in her daughter.

He left the disks behind and the child porn was discovered by the girl's boyfriend, who was checking if Jones had taken photos of her.

Mr Gordon said software on Jones's seized computer allowed access to blocked internet sites and prevented any outside monitoring of its use.

Jones told police officers he enjoyed looking at legal "Teen Model" sites.

His barrister, Giles Bridge, said his client now accepted he liked viewing images of underage girls but he would not be with his dying mother at the end of her life if he went to jail.

Judge Jonathan Rose sentenced Jones to 43 months imprisonment for sexual assaulting the girl and six months to run consecutively for possession of indecent images of children.

"You are a paedophilic criminal of sufficient baseness that condign punishment is needed," the judge told him.

He added: "You are devoid of any empathy for the child and unwilling to accept responsibility for your actions."

Jones must sign on the sex offenders' register for life and the judge made an indefinite Sexual Offences Prevention Order.