Babysitter is jailed for abusing girls

A BABYSITTER who abused two little girls he was looking after has been jailed for six years.

David Cumming, 52, preyed on the youngsters between August 1985 and June 1990, first at an address in Hawick and then later in Edinburgh.

Cumming, now of Tranent, East Lothian, tried to buy their silence with gifts.

Advocate depute Allison Di Rollo told the High Court in Edinburgh: “He would regularly buy sweets and would tell them it was their little secret.”

Cumming’s victims finally found the courage to tell their stories and he was arrested last year. In court he pleaded guilty to five charges of sex abuse.

Sentencing Cumming, judge Lord Turnbull told him: “I accept that the offences to which you have pled guilty took place many years ago and, in some respects, you may now be a different person. However, the passage of time does not alter what you did.”