AN elderly man has been jailed for four months for sexually assaulting a teenage girl. John Peet, 70, of St Peter s Drive, Chatteris, admitted two charges of sexual touching, in relation to a 15-year-old girl from Huntingdon. The assaults are said to have

AN elderly man has been jailed for four months for sexually assaulting a teenage girl.

John Peet, 70, of St Peter's Drive, Chatteris, admitted two charges of sexual touching, in relation to a 15-year-old girl from Huntingdon.

The assaults are said to have taken place in Sutton-on-Sea, Lincolnshire, between April 30, 2004 and December 1, 2005.

Prosecutor John Nooijen said Peet would ask the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to come and sit on his lap in his front room.

"If she did not agree then he would grab her by the arm and would then touch her inappropriately," Mr Nooijen said.

The incidents came to light on March 18 this year - Mother's Day - when the girl mustered the courage to tell her mother what had happened.

In a victim statement read out in court, the girl said: "I felt it (the incidents) was my fault and that they (the girl's family) wouldn't believe me.

"I have been wary of relationships since the incidents and cannot get close to people but I am relieved that the secret is now out."

In a police interview Peet had admitted the incidents had taken place, though claimed that the girl was 'inquisitive' and 'encouraged' him.

Fred Sagoe, mitigating at Peterborough Crown Court, asked Judge Nicholas Coleman to take the guilty pleas into account, and consider a non-custodial sentence.

But the judge ordered Peet to serve four months in prison and told him: "You were a man of good character and you have lost that.

"You deserve to be punished for what you did.