A MAN from North Yorkshire has been jailed for a total of three years and ten months for sexual activity with a child and making indecent photographs.

Malcolm Peter Barwick, 64, of Woodfield Drive, Harrogate, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual activity with a teenage girl under 16 and one count of sexual activity with a second teenage girl under 16.

Barwick also pleaded guilty to five counts of making indecent photographs of a child. and was also ordered to forfeit an indecent photograph and computer equipment, sign the sex offenders register for life, and was issued with a sexual offences prevention order until further order.

York Crown Court heard he allowed the girls to stay over at his home and at one point he asked one of the girls to wash him in the bath. He also massaged both the girls on separate occasions.

After the hearing Detective Constable Fiona Ayre said: “Barwick took advantage of the girls’ ages and trusting nature. He groomed the girls for his own sexual gratification.

“Grooming children is child abuse and this case must serve as a warning to all of the consequences of such abuse.

“I hope the outcome of this case provides the victims with some degree of closure.

“We all need to be alert to the signs of the sexual grooming of children.”