A 61-YEAR-OLD Cam man has been jailed for sexually assaulting five different girls over a 27-year period.

At the end of a week-long trial at Gloucester Crown Court today, David Keene was found unanimously guilty by the jury on all counts.

Keene, of Draycott, was jailed for a total of 23 years for the offences, which dated between 1972 and 1999 and included rapes of a child.

As the verdicts were announced, Keene called out from the dock: “It is outrageous.”

There were nine charges of indecent assault, six of rape of a female under the age of 16, one of attempted rape of a female under the age of 16 and one of indecency with a child.

Prosecutor James Haskell had told the jury that Keene abused three sisters when they were between the age of 11 and 15 from 1972 to 1978.

The jury also heard evidence from a victim who was abused by Keene in the 1990s when she was aged three or four.

Regarding the three sisters, Mr Haskell said Keene abused them when he was aged 15 or 16. He raped one of the girls when she was 13 or 14 in a barn in Bisley and also took her in a car to Rodborough Common and raped her there. Keene molested the other two sisters.

Another complainant was abused by Keene in the 1990s, and Mr Haskell said: “She made an allegation when she was 10. She said he'd touched her but didn't reveal the full extent of the abuse. She was embarrassed and didn't really know how to talk about it at that age. As a result no further action was taken against him at that time."

However she returned to the police in 2016 and claimed that Keene had abused her from the age of three or four.

“He put his hands in to her knickers and touched her,” Mr Haskell said. “She says that happened a number of times."

Keene started abusing the fifth complainant when she was aged four and 'touched her inappropriately' a number of times. She said he behaved "in a gropey sort of way" towards her even when she was in her teens and 20s.

Keene had denied all the charges, saying: “I have never raped anybody."