SISTERS sexually abused by their babysitter 35 years ago reported their ordeal to police after reading a court case about how he had ill-treated a dog.

Jonathan Dickinson, prosecuting, told Bolton Crown Court how seeing Robert Midgley’s name brought memories flooding back and the victims contacted police.

On the day of trial Midgley, aged 61, of Bromwich Street, The Haulgh, pleaded guilty to four counts of indecent assault on the girls, who were then aged up to 10 and 12 in the mid 1970s.

Mr Dickinson said the abuse happened in the girls’ bedroom at their Breightmet home on several occasions while the girls’ parents were out for the evening.

One sister, who was targeted on several occasions, was so terrified that she pretended to be asleep as Midgley abused her “He left her, telling her to be quiet and to go to sleep,” said Mr Dickinson.

Her sister was indecently assaulted once by Midgley.

The girls kept quiet about the abuse for decades, but Judge Peter Davies heard how they both suffered depression as a result of Midgley’s crimes and found it difficult to form relationships with men.

After reading a newspaper report about how Midgley was convicted of causing suffering to a Doberman dog in 2011, they decided to tell police about their ordeal.

Mark Friend, defending, said Midgley’s guilty plea had spared the women from having to give evidence in court and stressed that, apart from ill-treating the dog, he had not committed any other offences for 40 years.

Midgley was jailed for eight years and placed on the sex offenders register for an indefinite period.

Judge Davies commented that the girl repeatedly targeted by Midgley suffered pain and trauma at his hands.

“One can only have sympathy — have a broken heart for a little girl left in her bed after that had happened. It is a shocking story,” he said.