AN 81-year-old man is facing a prison sentence for sex attacks on an eight-year-old girl.

William Maund, of Badgers Walk, Stourport, was convicted by a jury last Friday of four counts of indecent assault.

He was found not guilty of rape against the same victim after a trial at Worcester Crown Court.

Judge David McEvoy granted the pensioner bail while pre-sentence and medical reports are prepared.

He warned the defendant, however, that custody was "inevitable" for such crimes.

Maund first attacked the girl in 1989 while they were in a car and she was dressed in her school uniform, said John Evans, prosecuting.

He also molested her in a house in Kidderminster and bribed her with gifts of chocolates to keep quiet but the victim recorded his behaviour in her diary, saying she wished he would stop touching her.

Her mother found the diary entry but Maund was not confronted about it, said Mr Evans.

The victim accused Maund again of misbehaviour during a blazing row with her parents over clothes when she was aged 21.

Police were alerted after she broke down in tears and repeated her complaint to a boyfriend.

The victim, now in her 20s, turned down an offer to give her evidence from behind a screen at court and instead took the witness stand.

Maund was arrested in 2004 but insisted that she had invented her allegations.

His barrister, Richard Bond, said it was one person's word against another and told the jury they could not be sure of guilt from the victim's evidence.

A teenage relative of Maund described him as "loving and affectionate" and never displaying any signs of perversion.

Mr Evans, however, suggested there was "a darker side" to him and that he tried to cover up the attacks by citing ill health.

He said although the victim had not intended her diary entry to be seen, it was an expression of the emotional turmoil she was in following the child abuse.