A man who repeatedly indecently assaulted a friend's six-year-old daughter and recorded it on video has been sentenced to seven years in prison.

George Train's actions were only exposed when his wife found his pornographic videos and told him to get them out of the house, a court heard.

Train then gave a sack of pornographic material, including footage of him abusing the girl, to the child's father. He did not want pornography in the house and gave it to a friend who watched the video, recognised the girl and Train and told her father who alerted police.

Two days later, on January 25, Train was arrested at his home in Allen Road, Haywards Heath, where the abuse had taken place.

At a hearing yesterday he pleaded guilty to six charges of indecent assault and four of taking indecent photos of the girl between August 1999 and August 2000.

Elizabeth Marsh QC defending, said Train was of previous good character and had admitted the offences when he was questioned by the police.

She said: "He would never have physically hurt this child and the complainant didn't appear to find the acts repugnant at the time.

"There came a time when she said she didn't want to do that thing again on her seventh birthday and that thing never happened again."

She added Train had been married 30 years, but was undergoing stress at work at the time.

Sentencing Train at Chichester Crown Court, Judge Anthony Thorpe, said: "I have seen that video again today, showing further acts and it shows you grooming that young child for sexual acts in a way that anyone in court today will have found to be appalling.

"You are now 54 and that young child was six and the daughter of a couple who had been your friends for two years.

"The sense of betrayal that family felt when they realised what you had done must have been profound."

Train was sentenced to seven years in prison with three years extended supervision, banned from working with children and ordered to be on the Sex Offenders Register for life.

Det Con Louise Butts, of Weald Division Child Protection Team, said after the hearing: "Although we are reasonably satisfied with what he has got, we would have hoped for a longer sentence, bearing in mind the seriousness of the offences and the possible long term impact on the child.

"It is certainly a relief to the family of the victim that he pleaded guilty."