A VALE man who assaulted a young girl for more than a year while she slept has been jailed for three years and branded a sex offender for life.

Brian Miller confessed to the attacks more than a decade after his crimes when he bumped into his victim at a swimming pool.

As well as three years in prison, the 55-year-old will then be on licence for another three years, meaning he faces a swift return to jail if he steps out of line.

And he has been added to the sex offenders register?? indefinitely after a psychiatric report found he was a "low to medium risk" of re-offending.

Miller, of Milton Estate, Alexandria, previously admitted assaulting a girl aged between 12 and 16 by kissing and indecently touching her.

Between 1996 and 2000, he regularly targeted the child, claiming she would have been asleep on most occasions and had no idea what was happened.

Miller also went after another child, aged 14, pushing her on to a bed, kissing her, playing with her hair and feet.

It was after Miller bumped into one of the victims, now with two children of her own, at a swimming pool that he turned himself in to police. He heard the woman warn her children about a "bad man" and he approached and promised to confess.

Miller's defence solicitor said justice would not have been done and the crimes never come to light had it not been for the confession last June.

He said his client was "uniquely contrite", was filled with "honest remorse" and recognised that he had "robbed children of their innocence".

He said: "It's clear that he has fully expressed remorse and is award of the grave impact of this offending behaviour.

"His plea of guilty, in line with his confession, this is a matter that can be disposed of with a community payback order."

But Sheriff Simon Pender said there was no question of sending Miller to prison and that he would be failing in his duty to the public if he chose otherwise.

He said: "These are serious matters, charges three and four in particular [and] in any view abhorrent. Only a custodial sentence is appropriate."

At a previous hearing, depute fiscal Sarah Healing described Miller's first attack in 1994 when a 14-year-old girl was staying overnight at his property. She was playing in a bedroom when he came in and sat by her.

She said: “He pushed her back on to the bed so she was lying down. As she did so, he was kissing her on the lips, tickling her feet and playing with her hair.

“She was shocked by this and she shouted at the accused before getting up and running from the house. She never returned again to the accused’s home.”

With the second child, who he attacked every second or third weekend for a year and a half, she once woke up to find Miller lying on a bed behind her.

Ms Healing said: “She couldn’t recall the accused doing anything but she did hear him pulling his zip up when he got out of bed. During the incident, she froze and didn’t know what to do.”