A REMORSELESS child abuser was blasted as "vile and devious" as he started a ten-year prison sentence still protesting his innocence.

Paedophile pensioner Kenneth Place sat stoney-faced in court while a statement from his victim was read, telling how he had ruined her life.

The 75-year-old showed no emotion either when a judge condemned his attacks – and those on another girl for which he was convicted in the 1970s.

Place – who is known as Geoff and still denies molesting either child – was also cleared 20 years ago of raping three youngsters in the late-1960s.

His accusers were all in court to see the retired engineer finally locked up for what one of them described later as "a lifetime's profession".

At Teesside Crown Court in 1976, he was given a community order and told to pay £100 compensation to a five-year-old girl he had sexually assaulted.

During his latest trial, he claimed that he had been tricked into signing a confession without reading what was written on the police document.

Recorder Amanda Rippon, said both cases were shockingly similar, and told Place, from West Auckland, County Durham, there was "compelling evidence".

The judge added: "The landscape is so different now. If today you had been charged with these offences, the maximum would have been life, not five years."

After he was found guilty last month, Miss Recorder Rippon told him: "It is not the 1970s when the sentencing regime was extraordinary, frankly.

"It is impossible to comprehend that. When someone abuses a child in the way you did, they go to prison for a substantial period."

Place was convicted of three charges of indecent assault and one of indecency with a child within 90 minutes of the jury retiring to deliberate.

Miss Recorder Rippon praised his victim's bravery, and told married Place: "I have read her personal statement with care and it makes tragic reading.

"The impact on her has been utterly devastating. She has continually had to feel tortured by what occurred, with events coming back to her regularly.

"You are 75 years of age, but there is little mitigation in that. You chose your victim young and the impact has meant it took her decades to speak out.

"There is no remorse. I accept a prison sentence at your age and with your problems will be more onerous. You caused severe psychological harm."

Christopher Baker, mitigating, said: "He maintains his innocence . . . I ask Your Honour to take into account his physically frailty in sentencing."

The court heard that Place – who has spinal arthritis and walks with a stick – attempted a joint suicide with his wife Sylvia with an overdose last week.

He even protested his innocence in a letter to the Northern Echo.

The court heard that Place treated his victim with sweets as he drove her to a lay-by on a country road near Teesside Airport to molest her in the 1970s.

Prosecutor Shaun Doods said during a three-day trial that Place would usually put a blanket over the girl's lap and abuse her as he drove.

Place, of Haweswater Grove, West Auckland, was also put on the sex offenders' register for life, and banned from having contact with under-16s.