A 66-year-old man convicted of sexual assaulting a schoolgirl more than a decade ago has been jailed for five years.

Lawrence Green, formerly of Brandon but now of Spinners Lane, Swaffham, was found guilty of four offences of sexual assaulting a girl under 13 dating back to when she was as young as five.

He was found guilty of two of the offences by 10-2 majority verdicts, one of the offences by an 11-1 majority and unanimously guilty of a fourth offence.

He was cleared of the two other offences.

In a victim impact statement read to the court by prosecutor Isobel Ascherson, the girl said the offending had "affected all aspects" of her life.

She added that although the process of speaking out had been "very emotional and difficult", it had brought her some closure.

Giving evidence during his trial Green claimed he had been “a friend” to the girl and denied sexually assaulting her.

He denied that he had groomed her from a young age by having naked physical contact with her and that she had “put up with it.”

The victim hadn’t told anyone about what Green had done to her until 2017.

During his trial the court heard that he had sexually assaulted the girl while playing a naked wrestling game, which he called the “jelly bean or jelly baby game”, with her on a bed when he was in his fifties and she was primary school age.

Miss Ascherson said that once the girl and Green were naked they had “tumbled over each other” on a bed.

On another occasion Green and the girl had been naked in a hot tub with Green and two other adults and while she was floating on her back her foot had accidentally touched his penis.

Miss Ascherson alleged that Green had then taken hold of her foot and tried to pull it back in contact with his penis.

Cross-examined by defence counsel Jonathan Goodman, the victim denied that the allegations she had made against Green were lies and were designed to hurt his wife after they fell out.

Yesterday, Judge David Pugh sentenced Green to a total of five years' imprisonment and he will have to serve half in custody before being released on licence.