THE mother of a young woman who stayed silent for 10 years about the sexual abuse she had suffered said today: "She still lives the nightmare."

Pensioner Fred Whittaker was this week starting a two-year jail term for performing sex acts on two little girls in the early 90s.

Whittaker, now 72, of Hodder Street, Accrington, admitted five specimen counts of indecent assault at Burnley Crown Court.

The court heard he had bribed the girls to keep quiet about what he was doing with sweets and chocolates.

Judge Raymond Bennett told him his victims had found it difficult to cope and would have to live with those feelings for the rest of their lives.

Today the mother of one of the girls -- who is now 19 -- said: "She has a new boyfriend but she's always falling back on what happened to her.

"She has nightmares most nights. It will always be with her."

She said: "We were stunned when he was sent to jail. We'd been warned that because he was over 70 he probably wouldn't be.

"It would be wrong to say we're pleased -- it's not pleasing when anyone goes to jail -- but we are grateful that our faith in the criminal justice system has been restored.

"It helps redress the pain."

The mother said she was concerned that court evidence had suggested that Whittaker had only touched under the girls' clothes. "This was serious, sustained sexual abuse," she said.

She said her daughter had kept the incidents bottled up for 10 years and it was only two years ago, when she was 17, when she told her: "Mum, I need to talk to you."

"When she told me I thought, 'Please, this isn't happening to us."

She recalled that when her daughter had been doing a paper round she suddenly stopped, telling her: "It's too dark."

"Then, when she was working in a shop in the town centre, Whittaker used to go in but she'd just tell staff to tell that man to go away."

The girls were devastated when they found out that Whittaker had been abusing both of them. "He had told each of them that if they did as he told them he wouldn't touch the other one.They were trying to protect each other. He told my daughter she was special, the only one."

The mother added: "He'll be out in 12 months but we'll have to live with this for ever.

"It's been very stressful and we are very proud of our girls for having the courage to go to court. We wanted to show people like Whittaker just can't get away with it."