An 82-year-old former serviceman who began molesting a girl when she was just four has been jailed for two years.
Ronald McLellan from Dundee carried out sex acts on the child then told her to keep it quiet or he’d get upset.
The ex-RAF senior aircraft technician, who served in the forces for more than 20 years, claimed he was “not doing it for his own gratification”.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard the depraved OAP “misled the girl about the nature” of what he was doing to her and told her it was “for her benefit”.
A sheriff told McLellan he had “manipulated” the girl and “made her complicit in her own abuse” by extracting a promise to keep it secret.
When the girl finally told of the abuse, police confronted McLellan who admitted his crimes.
McLellan, of Caldrum Terrace, pleaded guilty on indictment to a charge of sexually assaulting the girl between January 1 2014 and February 21 2016 at his home in Dundee.
Defence solicitor Ross Bennett said: “He is concerned that if he goes in to prison he will never come out.
“He will never see this girl again.
“He has generally been a good citizen and has done well for his family.”
Sheriff Alastair Brown jailed McLellan for two years and placed him on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
He said: “I note the distress she now feels which is a foreseeable consequence of what you did and said to her.
“I don’t know whether the effects on her are likely to be long lasting but it must be a distinct possibility.
“The child was particularly young.
“You extracted from her a promise not to tell anyone and said you would be upset if she did.
“That was manipulative.
“That made her complicit in her own abuse.
“You misled her about the nature of the act.
“You misled her in to thinking it was acceptable and for her benefit.”
