A CHILD abuser has been jailed for 23 years after he was trapped by a mother into making a video recorded confession.  

Barry Midgley molested the three sisters at his home in Okehampton over a 13 year period and was brought to justice when the girls' mother went to confront him about his abuse.  

She and one of the victims went to his home and used a smartphone to secretly film the meeting in which he eventually admitted sexually assaulting the victims.  

Widower Barry Midgley, aged 67 of Okehampton, was found guilty of one attempted rape, seven indecent assaults, and six offences of sexual activity with a child after a jury at Exeter Crown Court watched the footage.

He was jailed for a total of 23 years by Judge Phillip Wassall, who told him: 'This abuse started when the children were as young as five or six and carried on with two of them until they were 11 or 12.  

'This was a protracted series of offences and a course of abuse. You have tried to distance yourself from the allegations but the evidence was compelling.  

'The victim impact statements of the girls are heartrending, but is typical of what victims of this type of abuse go through and the way it affects their lives.  

'Like so many who commit these offences, you present as a very different figure in everyday life.

'They were so young when this started they did not know it was wrong, but the time comes when they do and it eats into them.'  

After the case Detective Constable Nadine Freestone welcomed the sentence on behalf of the victims.  

She said: 'Midgley used his position of respect to seriously sexually abuse three young children, two of them over many years.

'The family feel justice has been done and there is no longer a risk he could harm other children.  They are very pleased with the sentence today.'

During a week-long trial in March the prosecution alleged Midgley touched the girls when they visited his home.   

They told their mother at the time they did not want to go back to his home because he was 'weird and a bit of a perv' but she had no idea of the abuse they were suffering.

Their mother became suspicious after overhearing him making inappropriate comments in 2013 and went to his home to accuse him of abusing her three daughters.  

Midgley told the jury he had never done anything inappropriate sexually to any of the girls and that his apparent confession recorded on the mother's phone was not true.  

Mr Mark Jackson, defending, said Midgley had lived an otherwise blameless life and there had been no threat, violence or coercion.