AN 88-year-old man has been jailed for three years for sexually abusing two school children.

Paedophile James McGeary inappropriately touched the boy and girl who were five and eight and in his company, individually, at the time.

While abusing the terrified young girl he told her: “This will be our little secret.”

His younger victim only realised the seriousness of what had happened to him after sex education at school.

For years they kept it a secret before the girl reported the abuse in 2014 and they relived their ordeal in court.

The two victims, now 25 and 28 – who cannot be named for legal reasons – described how sick McGeary took advantage of them when they were alone with him at his West End home.

The pensioner, from Lambhill, denied the charges when he went on trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court.

But, a jury believed his two victims and convicted him of two charges of using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices between January 1996 and December 2001.

Sheriff Lindsay Wood said: “There is no alternative to a custodial sentence, I have a public duty and I will fulfil that by giving you a period of three years.”

Wheelchair bound McGeary will be on the Sex Offenders’ register for 10 years.

In her evidence the woman described what happened to her as a “traumatic experience”.

She told defence counsel Geoffrey Forbes she never told anyone at the time what was happening to her.

Procurator fiscal depute Harry Findlay asked what she understood it being “their little secret” to mean. She said: “Something to be kept between myself and him.”

McGeary’s second victim, a 25-year-old man told the court the abuse was when he was at primary school.

He told the jury he had sex education in primary seven, adding: “That’s when I started to understand what it was that happened.”

Mr Forbes described McGeary as a man who worked hard and provided for his family but had “gone off the rails at the age of 68”.