FURIOUS family members of three abused girls had to be restrained in court as a paedophile was found guilty of eight sex offences.

Six police officers held back angry relatives including the father of one of the abused girls who rushed the dock trying to get at Warren McMinn, himself a father of three.

The courtroom drama came after Judge John Roberts, who branded McMinn a threat to young girls, jailed him for six years after a jury returned guilty verdicts on eight out of nine indecency charges. The jury found him not guilty of one charge of indecency with a child.

As the man lunged at McMinn, two Group 4 dock officers ushered him into a holding room and the police officers restrained and calmed the distraught family members.

He was later brought back before the judge for contempt of court but was told because of the stress and strain he had been under, no further action was taken. The father apologised and left the court.

McMinn's relatives, also in the public gallery, were crying and shouting that it was the second time he had been attacked, the first occasion being when the case was first heard at magistrates court.

They later left court by another exit and received a police escort from the court to their cars.

McMinn, aged 54, of Booth Road, Little Lever, had denied nine indecency charges but was convicted of eight charges after a six-day trial at Bolton Crown Court.

The three claim they were plied with money, sweets and cigarettes and encouraged to touch his private parts through a hole in his pocket.

The offences came to light when one of the girls told her mother that she had seen the two others being indecently assaulted in McMinn's car in a secluded back street near some sheds.

McMinn wiped away tears as the judge passed sentence on him and ordered him to sign the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely. He also extended the period of supervision when he is released for an extra three years.

He told McMinn that the sexual offences, including inciting the girls to commit acts of gross indecency with him, were "disgusting". He said: "I view you as a threat to young girls."

He said the aggravating features of the case were their ages of nine and 10 years and that he had deliberately befriended them on the way home from school using money and cigarettes to obtain sexual activity.

In evidence McMinn said there had no sexual motive in his mind when he talked to the girls but agreed he would have been annoyed if his own daughters had been putting their hands into the pocket of a man they didn't know.

McMinn claimed that the girls had fabricated the whole story to get him into trouble and claimed that he had not exploited them for his own sexual gratification.