A CALLOUS paedophile who raped a ten-year-old girl has been jailed for 18 years.

John Raymond Cole told the girl she would be sent to prison if she told anyone about the abuse in Crawley.

The child’s mother had found a note in her backpack detailing the sick sexual abuse.

“I told him I didn’t like it, he said ‘that’s OK, we can try again another time, I told him over and over again I didn’t want it,” the girl’s note read.

At Hove Crown Court Cole was found guilty of rape and child sex offences.

Judge David Rennie said Cole only cared for satisfying his “twisted sexual instincts” and had caused “tremendous harm” to the girl.

He had denied six charges and said the girl and her mother had made up the whole ordeal, but a jury found him guilty.

The judge said Cole’s decision to deny the charges and put the victim through a trial was a “nasty and cruel thing to do”.

Rowan Jenkins, prosecuting, said Cole had groomed the girl, abused her trust, and had used a tactic of deliberate isolation to cover his tracks.

Cole had told her she could go to prison if she said anything about his crimes.

The prosecutor told jurors: “For a child that age that’s a very powerful threat. That shut her up, isolated her from her mother.”

Clare Evans, defending, said Cole accepted he faced a long spell in prison, and will only be released after a parole board hearing, rather than being released on licence half way through his sentence.

Cole, 33, of Oak Way, Crawley, was jailed for 18 years by Judge Rennie.

The judge told him: “It is a real mystery what turned you into a callous paedophile who betrayed a child’s trust in the most serious ways time and time again.

“It is hard to imagine a much more degrading and traumatising thing to happen to a child.

“You knew the victim was most unlikely to tell anyone about your sexual abuse, but you still frightened her into compliance. You told her she could be sent to prison.

“You chose to treat her as an object with which you could satisfy your twisted sexual instincts and caused tremendous harm.

“The final betrayal was to try to lie your way out of the situation, putting the girl and her mother through the additional ordeal of a trial. That was a nasty and cruel thing to do.”