A 74-year-old former RAF pilot who sexually abused two girls beginning more than 40 years ago was jailed yesterday for three-and-a-half years.

Judge John Shand at Stafford Crown Court told Donald Lynch, who suffers from prostate and skin cancer: "If you were a younger and fitter man I would have considered eight years.

"But I have to sentence a man very much older and in ill health. There was persistent abuse." Lynch of Tamworth Road, Lichfield, was ordered to sign the Sex Offenders' Register for life.

He was convicted in May on 14 charges of indecent assault on one girl from 1960 to 1972 then a second from 1992.

Michael Grey, defending, said: "His wife suffers from angina and it is another concern for him because he will not be able to support her."