A REMORSELESS paedophile was last night (Thursday) starting a 15-year jail sentence for a campaign of abuse and bullying against a girl decades ago.

Raymond Brown, now 58, was told by a judge that he had robbed his victim of her childhood and harmed her in the most "grossly serious way".

The balding pervert, from Howden-le-Wear, County Durham, showed no emotion as he was locked up at Teesside Crown Court yesterday.

Judge Peter Armstrong told him: "You still deny these matters, minimise your part and have shown no remorse at all for what you did.

"I have read the victim impact statement and the effect on her has been devastating . . . it is no wonder she has had to have counselling."

Brown was a heavy-drinking security guard living in the Bishop Auckland area when the abuse was carried out, a jury heard in a trial last month.

Prosecutor Richard Bennett said that he warned the terrified girl that her mother would be jailed if she ever reported what he was doing to her.

At one point, the victim did tell her family of her ordeal, but it seems she was not believed and the matter was never reported to the police.

She eventually came forward this year, and Brown was found guilty of rape, four charges of sexual assault, and four of sexual activity with a child.

His barrister, David Lamb, told Judge Armstrong: "Mitigation, of course, is extremely limited in the circumstances of this case.

"The defendant who stands before you is a very different person to the man who behaved in the appalling way the Crown suggest in the late-1970s.

"He had lived, on the face of it, a law-abiding lifestyle for a significant period of time. He was a young man at the time of these offences.

"He is likely to be an old man by the time he is released and we suggest that the court can be confident that this behaviour will not be repeated.

"His wife, who stood by him throughout this trial, attended court with him every day. He can be grateful she has decided to stand by him."

Brown, who was ordered to sign on the sex offenders' register for life, was told by the judge that the Parole Board will sanction his release.

"My sentencing remarks and the pre-sentence report will be available to them," he said. "They will take into account the complete lack of remorse."