A FORMER coach driver who molested a Huddersfield boy about 18 years ago has been jailed.

A court was told that Reginald Ashenhurst, now 60, abused the then 13-year-old from Highburton, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Bradford Crown Court was told the incident happened when Ashenhurst was driving groups of children on ski trips from Harrogate Ski School in 1986.

The court heard that Ashenhurst, who pleaded guilty in May to one count of indecently assaulting the boy and two counts of indecently assaulting an 11-year-old from East Yorkshire, gained the older boy's trust before groping him.

He was jailed for two years and eight months and put on the sex offenders' register for life.

In mitigation, Jonathan Ray said the offences occurred over a relatively short time.

He added: "In the scale of things, these offences are not the worst of their type. It could be said these are one-off offences.

"He is highly unlikely to commit further offences of this nature."

Judge Roger Scott said Ashenhurst had planned the offences over a period of time.

But he told Ashenhurst, now of Langdon, near Dover, he would not be banned from working with children.

The judge added: "You have been trying to evade appearing in the dock for this matter for some time.

"You tried to get the Crown to drop the case because you were ill - but here you are, fit and well.

"In modern times you would have been called a paedophile."