A FORMER York man who abused a child he was supposed to be looking after has been jailed.

Gavin Peter Rennison, 39, went into the girl’s bedroom when he thought she was sleeping and sexually assaulted her, said Tom Storey, prosecuting.

But she was awake throughout the incident.

When her mother returned, the girl went downstairs and Rennison tried to get her to go back upstairs.

But she ran to her mother.

She was so hysterical it took her mother some time to calm her down and listen to her account. Rennison is not related to the child.

When Rennison’s partner heard what had happened, she ordered him to leave the house they shared.

He was missing for more than a day and police finally found him sleeping in a layby on the York Outer Ring Road.

He had been drinking and later pleaded guilty to a drink-driving offence at York Magistrates’ Court.

Rennison, formerly of York and now of Whitley Bay, on Tyneside, pleaded guilty to sexual abuse and was jailed for two years.

He was also put on the sexual offenders’ register for 10 years. “It is baffling how a man of 39 years and of previous good character could commit such an offence,” said his solicitor advocate, Keith Whitehouse.

“He himself is struggling to come to terms with what he has done.

“He wholly regrets his actions.”

Mr Storey told York Crown Court that the child had been badly affected psychologically by the incident and has problems with nightmares.

The Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, said: “The ongoing effects on the child will not probably be known for some time.

“Hopefully she will be able to put it into the past.”