The sister of a paedophile victim has hit out at judges who allowed the molester to walk free from court for a second time.

She said she had lost faith in the criminal justice system after a failed appeal court bid to impose a stricter sentence on 18-year-old Callum Witheridge.

Witheridge, formerly of Glyme Drive, Berinsfield, but now of Field Avenue, Blackbird Leys, avoided jail in January after being convicted at Oxford Crown Court of molesting a girl and a young boy.

The case prompted child protection groups and the victims' relatives to call for Witheridge to be locked up.

But on Wednesday, judges sitting in London's Criminal Appeal Court backed Judge Julian Hall's decision to give Witheridge a three-year supervision order. One of the victims' sisters, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: "I was just really gutted. I have lost faith in the justice system.

"He has got real grooming tendencies. He knew what he was doing - he was bribing them to keep quiet."

She said she believed the judges' comments that Witheridge needed a sentence which offered him treatment were a damning indictment of the judicial system.

And she said: "If the judges don't believe in our prison system and our rehabilitation system then there is obviously something wrong."

But Fiona Tarrant, a spokesman for Thames Valley Probation, said: "A three-year supervision order is not a soft or easy option."