A DISGRACED NHS manager is facing a long jail sentence after being found guilty of abusing an eight-year-old girl more than 55 years ago.

Michael Redgrave took the schoolgirl to the room where he was a lodger in Dawlish and repeatedly made her take part in painful sexual ordeals.

He tried to rape her twice but the pain was so great that she screamed and he stopped because he was worried about his hosts hearing the noise.

Redgrave, now 72, remained undetected until the victim went to the police in 2018 after spending a lifetime trying to bury the secret.

She had only told very close friends and her husband previously before making a disclosure to a counsellor. Her husband had challenged Redgrave in a Facebook message and he had not denied the abuse.

Redgrave went on to enjoy a career as an NHS manager which ended in disgrace when 80 child abuse images were found on his work computer at Sarum Road Hospital, Winchester.

It led to him being dismissed and jailed for a year and four months in 2007. Some of the images depicted abuse which was almost identical to that which he had inflicted on his victim many years earlier.

Redgrave, now of Barn Close, Crewkerne, Somerset, denied two attempted rapes, two counts of bugger and one of attempted buggery and two of indecency with a child.

He was found guilty of all the offences at the end of a four-day trial at Exeter Crown Court. Judge David Evans adjourned sentence until later this month but said jail is inevitable. He bailed him to give him a chance to ‘put his affairs in order’.

Mr Peter Coombe, prosecuting, said Redgrave was a lodger at the house in Dawlish in about 1967 while studying at technical college at Torquay. He took the opportunity to befriend and abuse a little girl.

He started by taking the child to his room and a pattern developed in which she began visiting it. He scared her into agreeing and to remaining silent by telling her she would be in trouble if anyone found out.

The abuse continued on a regular basis while he remained at the house and continued on one occasion after he moved out and on a boating trip during which he tried to rape her in a rowing dinghy.

Mr Coombe said Redgrave would have been aged 17 to 20 at the time.

He said: ‘He told her this was their little secret and she should not tell anyone.’

She told police he abused her about 100 times in all and at times he demanded that she perform oral sex on him.

The three times married grandfather Redgrave gave evidence and denied any sexual activity with the girl.

He said: ‘I was shocked when I heard what she was alleging. I cannot think of any incident where I touched her inappropriately.

‘I have never had anal sex in my life. I would never to anything like that. It is pure invention.’