(Image: North Yorkshire Police)
A York paedophile is today starting more than 22 years in jail for raping and sexually abusing a girl.
The actions of Ian Philip Moffat, 63, had affected the girl so deeply she at times had become suicidal, York Crown Court heard.
He had also downloaded pictures of young children being abused from the internet onto his home computer, said Michael Cahill, prosecuting.
In her personal statement to the court, the girl who was abused by Moffat said: “I should be living a normal happy life but feel he has taken this away from me by what he has done.
“Ian Moffat had no right to do this to me. I was only a child. I was extremely vulnerable. I will have to live with what he did to me for the rest of my life. This isn’t something I will just forget about.”
Defence barrister Sean Smith said Moffat had cancer, for which he was taking medication in prison on remand, and his conviction will have a “significant impact on the remainder of his life".
Moffat, of Lindsey Avenue, Holgate, denied six charges of rape and two of sexual assault, but was convicted by a York jury last month.
He admitted three charges of downloading indecent images of children from the internet at his first appearance before York Crown Court.
He was jailed for 22 years and eight months and will serve an extra year on prison licence following his release. He will also be on the sex offenders' register for the rest of his life and subject to a sexual harm prevention order for 30 years.
The Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, said: “This was a shocking series of offences.”
The circumstances that led to the girl finally revealing what had happened to her after years of silence were tragic, he said.
But she had had the “morale fibre and courage” to tell the world what Moffat had done and had been a “compelling witness” against him.
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Mr Cahill said that when police went to arrest Moffat, they found the indecent images of children on his computer.
They included 21 of the worst category, 18 of the middle category and 110 of the least serious category. A police expert assessed the age of three of the children pictured as being between four and eight years old, three to five years old and five to eight years old.