'Your abuse of my daughter broke my heart' - mum

A paedophile who abused a six-year-old girl "destroyed and damaged innumerable lives", the victim's mother has said.

Brian Pearce, 76, abused the girl in Ryedale more than 10 years ago.

In a victim impact statement read to York Crown Court, the girl's mother told Pearce: "I don't know if you will ever understand the consequences of your sexual depravity."

He was jailed for two years and 10 months after earlier pleading guilty to sexual activity in the presence of a child.

The mother said hearing details of what he had done to her daughter made her feel "physically sick to the pit of my stomach".

She added: "Brian, you made a conscious decision, that decision has destroyed and damaged innumerable lives."

"There is not a single person in my life that has not been impacted in some way and all that pain for your sexual gratification."

She said the trauma her daughter had experienced had "broken my heart".

"We will never know the woman she might have been if you had not abused, betrayed and damaged her both physically and mentally," she said.

"[She] will always be the bravest person I will ever know.

"Just by getting out of bed more days than not and even trying to engage with the world is more than I would be able to do."

Pearce, who now lives in Northampton, was also made the subject of an indefinite sexual harm prevention order.

North Yorkshire Police investigator Doug Stanway said: "The term 'coward' does not even come close to describing Pearce.

"I hope the fact he's finally been convicted is some form of comfort to the victim and her family and they continue to heal from the ordeal he inflicted."

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