William Cooper jailed for sexually abusing young girl
A man who admitted sexually abusing a young girl for seven years has been jailed for three years and four months.
William Cooper, 51, abused the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, almost every day at addresses in Glasgow between 1986 and 1992.
Glasgow Sheriff Court heard how the abuse came to light years later when he confessed to mental health workers.
Cooper will be supervised for 18 months on release. He was also placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.
The court heard that Cooper only stopped abusing the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, after she threatened to tell her mother.
He began to suffer from depression last year and told mental health staff that he had abused the girl.
Social workers and police were then contacted and Cooper was charged.
Sentencing Cooper, Sheriff Lindsay Wood told him that he had committed "heinous offences".
"These crimes were perpetrated over a lengthy period of time on an innocent girl in your care," he said.
"You abused your position of trust and took advantage of the girl for your own satisfaction and you must appreciate that you will have scarred her for life."
Sheriff Wood told Cooper that he would have sentenced him to five years in prison had he not pleaded guilty at a very early stage.
At an earlier hearing, Cooper, of Partick, Glasgow, admitted using lewd and indecent conduct towards the girl at various addresses in Glasgow between January 1986 and December 1992.