AN AYR pensioner found guilty of historic sexual abuse charges against three victims, including a child who was just eight years old, has been told to "burn in hell" as he was sent down.

Robert McCurdie had denied six charges, including sexual assaults and lewd, indecent, libidinous behaviour and acts, alleged to have been committed from the late 1990s onwards.

But McCurdie, now aged 68, was found guilty by a jury at Ayr Sheriff Court of assaulting a woman in 1999 and the early 2000s by repeatedly groping her and by kissing her on the lips.

He was also convicted of committing lewd acts towards an eight-year-old girl in Ayr on August 1, 1998 by climbing into her bed while she slept and sexually assaulting her.

The jury also found McCurdie guilty of a third charge, of indecently assaulting a third female victim on January 1, 2010, also while she was asleep.

However, the jury acquitted him of further allegations that he had forced a girl aged seven or eight to watch him having sex with a woman in the mid-1980s, of assaulting the same girl, and of breaching a court-imposed bail condition by approaching one of his alleged victims last year.

Sentence was deferred for criminal justice social work reports and a risk assessment and McCurdie was released on bail. 

When he returned to court last week, his defence solicitor said: "He returned to his home address following the conclusion of the trial and that evening there was a disturbance.

"He is now effectively in homeless accommodation.

"The report is not surprising, given his evidence.

"He had an unremarkable childhood; he attended and left school, worked most of his life, and then suffered a stroke, living alone that period financed on state benefits.

"At present he walks with a stick, with a myriad of physical issues.

"He is aware of the options available to the court." 

Sheriff Desmond Leslie said: "The jury considered very carefully all the evidence, including your own, and made their own assessment. 

"I note you maintain your denial of the offences of which you were convicted by the jury, however it is the jury's verdict that prevails.

"These are serious matters you were convicted of. I don't intend to go over them in detail. 

"You know what you were convicted of. A custodial sentence is inevitable."

He was sentenced to two years in prison and added to the sex offenders register for 10.

Shouts of "rot in hell" were heard from the public gallery as he was led downstairs to begin his sentence.