A TELEPHONE engineer who sexually abused three young girls has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Robert Cooper, 52, was sentenced at Exeter Crown Court after being convicted on all 10 indecency charges to which he had pleaded not guilty.

Judge Graham Cottle told Cooper of Cunningham Place, Bournemouth: "The distress and pain you inflicted was evident from the evidence your victims gave in the trial. The recollections of their childhoods will be dominated by what you did to them. You chose to plead not guilty and that meant they had to relive their ordeals in court. The writer of the pre-sentence report thinks that you represent a fairly high risk of re-offending."

Judge Cottle ordered that after his release Cooper remain on licence for the whole of the prison term and told him to sign on the Sex Offenders Register for life.

At the trial the jury heard the abuse happened in Bournemouth and Leicester over an eight year period between 1990 and 1998 when the girls were aged between 11 and 17.

Cooper denied that he had indecently assaulted the girls when he was meant to be looking after them.

Mitigating Stuart Patterson said none of the incidents involved persistent abuse. He said Cooper had had difficulty facing up to the offences, or that he was actually capable of committing them.

But he had now plucked up the courage to tell his partner and his own children what he had done and wanted to get help.