Pensioner Kenneth Arnold sexually assaulted two ten-year-old girls after he invited them into his home for weekly games of strip poker.

Oxford Crown Court heard how the 67-year-old touched the naked youngsters' private parts and got them to dress in bathing costumes and his wife's clothes.

They were asked to perform the Dance of the Seven Veils and shown pornography by Arnold, who also lay naked on top of one of the youngsters.

Yesterday Arnold, of Oxford Road, Cowley, Oxford, was jailed for 21 months after admitting two charges of indecent assault. He was cleared of gross indecency after denying it at a hearing last month.

Sentencing Arnold, Judge Tom Corrie told him: "You perpetrated the grossest abuse not only of trust but physically and sexually. You have damaged, if not destroyed, the girls' chances of developing a normal sexuality and in doing that you did a terrible thing. "Both girls, in different ways, have been and remain deeply affected by these perverted acts of yours.

"It may be that you are not a significant risk to other young girls but I am troubled by your lack of empathy for your victims. I hope you will consider what you have done to them."

Prosecuting, Edmund Walters had told the court how Arnold abused the girls, now aged 14, regularly between March 1994 and December 1996.

The matters came to light in January this year after the girls' school was tipped off.

When the sentence was read out, the grey-haired Arnold, who walks with the aid of a stick, had to be supported by dock officers. As he was led away, there were shouts of abuse from the public gallery.

Nicholas Syfret, who defended the pensioner, said Arnold was in ill health and had not offended since stopping the abuse in 1996.

Mr Syfret said: "He has had a mostly unhappy recent medical history and it may well be that his life expectancy must be pretty short.

"It is bound to be difficult for him to cope with the hardship of a custodial sentence. He is genuinely ashamed of the acts that he has done."

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