A TORTURER with a history of child sex abuse and cruelty going back 20 years has been jailed.

But police today warned sadistic Stuart Wedge branded a continuing danger to children by a judge could be free by 2008 and is showing no signs of change. They have advised families to be on their guard.

Wedge, 48, was yesterday jailed for four-and-a-half years after his latest campaign of suffering inflicted on a nine-year-old Burnley boy.

He has already served a seven-year jail term and his past victims have been as young as three.

Wedge, who has lived and worked in Burnley and Nelson, left his most recent victim traumatised and needing counsellling after an horrific two-year catalogue of humiliation, degradation and mental torment.

The former security guard has in the past befriended families by doing odd jobs and has then embarked on callous, bizarre and sordid treatment of youngsters for his own gratification.

The defendant, who most recently lived with his third wife in Cedar Street, Burnley, subjected the nine-year-old to a series of assaults and ill treatment, leaving him crying in pain.

Wedge, who has children of his own, put a knife to the boy's head and threatened him "for fun", hit him with a belt and horsewhip, squeezed his fingers with pliers and shot him repeatedly with a ball-bearing gun, the town's crown court heard.

He also cut the boy's hair, taunted him and called him names, taped his nose, daubed offensive names on his forehead, kneed and kicked him and took pictures of the child's misery.

The youngster's mother has branded Wedge "evil" and said she did not know if her son would ever be able to put it all behind him and lead a normal life.

The defendant admitted 10 charges of cruelty against the boy but the court was told yesterday he had shown no remorse and contrition for his conduct, continued to minimise his actions and blamed others.

He still denied most of the incidents involving the nine-year-old although he had pleaded guilty.

Judge Beverley Lunt, who slammed his behaviour as disgraceful and pathetic, told Wedge: "You are a continuing danger to children."

The judge imposed an extended licence period of two years and banned Wedge from working with children for life.

After the case, Detective Constable Julie Monk said: "We are disappointed that despite extensive resources regarding his offending from the probation service, this man's character remains unchanged."

The court has been told how in 1983 the defendant assaulted a four-year-old child with a stick and five years later was convicted of cruelty allegations and sex attacks on children aged three, four and six.

Wedge's past sadistic behaviour has included making a three-year-old boy sit in front of a fire until he burned, forcing a five-year-old's head under water, poking an eight-year-old's legs with a butcher's steel knife and forcing a child to do press-ups until they were completely exhausted.

His sex abuse of a three-year-old was discovered after the child started being sexually explicit and used inappropriate words at pre-school.

Tim Ashmole, prosecuting, told the court the offences against the nine-year-old came to light after he told a teaching assistant at his Burnley school he was unhappy.

The boy drew the knife Wedge had held to his head for officers and told them he had not been able to move as the defendant had held him down.

Wedge was arrested last year and when the allegations were put to him made no comment or denied they happened. He maintained his denials right up until the day he was due to face trial.

Mr Ashmole said the nine-year-old's mother told police the victim was haunted by bad memories of what happened. She told officers: "Wedge is an evil, bad man who deserves whatever sentence is imposed."

Hugh Barton, defending, told the court it was not suggested Wedge caused any significant injuries to the nine-year-old. Wedge had been at large since 1992 and there was an 11-year gap in which he did not offend.