A PAEDOPHILE security guard whose abuse left a young girl with permanent emotional damage has been spared jail because he has terminal dementia.

William Gardiner took advantage of the girl when she was 11 and visiting the squalid home near Taunton where he lived with his mother and brother.

He had already served a four-year jail term for abusing another girl 20 years earlier when he carried out a series of new sex attacks on his second victim in the 2000s.

She was too traumatised by her experience to tell anyone until she met Gardiner again in 2018 and he sexually assaulted her once more, leading her to inform the police.

He was arrested and interviewed, but is now so ill he needs full time care at a specialist facility in Minehead.

He is so confused with irreversible dementia he does not recognise his family or his solicitor.

Gardiner also suffers serious physical disabilities and his trial was moved to Exeter as Taunton Crown Court has no wheelchair access.

He was found unfit to stand trial and did not attend a three-day hearing at which a jury was asked to decide whether he committed the acts alleged.

Gardiner, 74, previously of Oake Close, Oake, was found to have committed five offences of assault by penetration and one of sexual assault and was given an absolute discharge by Mr Recorder Donald Tait.

He told the jury Gardiner’s unfitness to plead meant the only alternate sentences were a hospital or a supervision order but had not been recommended by either doctors or probation officers.

He said the victim’s personal statement, in which she revealed she is still haunted by nightmares and flashbacks and once attempted suicide, showed the appalling effects of childhood abuse.

He told the jury: “Now you see what happens to victims of offences like these. It is important for the victim to know that justice has been done. I hope she will get some progress from the process.

“I am satisfied this man poses no danger now and he would not be able to understand any order I could make.”

He added: “The victim wanted to be believed. And she has, in a very short period of time.”

Virginia Cornwall, prosecuting, said the abuse took place after he had stopped working as a security guard.

He met the girl when she visited the house and started touching her, leading on to more serious sexual assaults.

Miss Cornwall said Gardiner’s predilection for young girls was shown by his previous offending, which he admitted at Bristol Crown Court in 1987.

The victim’s impact statement said Gardiner’s actions had blighted her childhood and prevented her living a normal life.

She wrote: “I was so scared that I froze. I used to feel dirty, however much I washed.

"He made me feel small and worthless. At one time I tried to take my own life. I felt like I had no right to be on this earth.”

Gardiner denied all the assaults when interviewed by police and told them that he had no sexual interest in children.

Harry Ahuja, defending, said Gardiner is constantly being transferred between a care home in Minehead and hospital for treatment.

He said: “The prognosis is that his mental disorder is likely to worsen. There is no treatment and his care is intended to slow down the process and provide for his physical needs.”