A SCOUTMASTER who videoed himself having sex with two underage girls and also seriously assaulted a boy failed in a bid to get his jail term cut at London's Criminal Appeal Court.

Judge Lord Justice Rose described Michael Jay, 24, of Hurcott Road, Kidderminster, as a "mentally immature adult with poor social skills, who felt at home with teenagers".

Jay pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault on a male, two of indecency with a girl under 16 and two of taking an indecent photograph of a child and was jailed for five and a half years at Worcester Crown Court on June 22 last year.

He appealed against the length of that sentence on Wednesday last week but arguments that it was "manifestly excessive" were dismissed.

Lord Justice Rose told the court that Jay, a Scoutmaster and martial arts enthusiast, had got the children drunk before molesting them. He had told the sentencing judge that he made the videos to prove that the offences had been consensual.

Susanah Johnson, for Jay, pleaded for leniency and told the court that Jay was a "nave and vulnerable" man who had lived with his mother all his life and had been a virgin until the incidents for which he was jailed.

Lord Justice Rose, however, said: "We cannot deviate from the view that this was a very serious series of offences that involved the grooming of children with alcohol, the seriousness of which Jay seems unwilling to accept.

"The sentence is not excessive, though severe, and this appeal is dismissed," the judge concluded.