THE former leader of Worcestershire County Council has been jailed for a string of sex assaults.

Last month George Lord admitted three counts of sexual assault on a girl in the 1970s, having already been found guilty of a sex attack against a 19-year-old council employee in 2010.

Today at Birmingham Crown Court the 79-year-old was jailed for four years - one year for each offence.

He admitted indecent assaults on a girl aged 14 and 15 in the 1970s and was found guilty after a trial of a sex attack on 19-year old woman at County Hall in Worcester in 2010.

Judge Nigel Godsmark, describing the three historic indecent assaults in the 1970s, spoke directly to the grim-faced 79-year-old, when he said: “You should have been her protector, not her abuser.”

Bernard Linnemann, prosecuting, said Lord was a married man in his 40s, a ‘man of education’ and a church minister and ‘popular with young people’ when he built up trust with a naïve young woman then aged just 11 who at the time was having troubles at home and enjoyed the attention from him.

Mr Linnemann said: “His actions demonstrate a progressive course of behaviour which the prosecution say was by way of grooming her. She felt loved by him in the context of her difficulties at home. By the time she was 14 he was telling her she was gorgeous and sensual, using language like that.”

• See tomorrow's Worcester News for the full story.