A pensioner who sexually abused a six-year-old girl was spared jail by a judge - and told to compensate her with money for a new bike.

Convicted sex offender Eric Cole, 71, admitted sexually assaulting the girl as she played in a garden in Barton, Oxford, last summer.

Sentencing him at Oxford Crown Court yesterday, Judge Julian Hall said Cole needed treatment for his lust for young girls to take place in the community, as a previous jail term for sexual abuse on a child had failed to rehabilitate him.

Cole, now living in Church Street, Bedford, had been jailed for 15 months for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl in 1998, the court was told by prosecuting barrister Alan Maines.

The six-year-old victim's family urged Judge Hall from the public bench to return the pensioner to jail, but he said he was not convinced it was the best way to protect little girls from the defendant.

After suspending a nine-month jail term, Judge Hall imposed a sexual offenders' prevention order on Cole, to be served in the community.

The order bans him from being alone with a child under 16 for five years and says he must attend a sexual offenders' programme.

He also ordered Cole to pay the victim £250 compensation, adding: "If it buys her a nice new bicycle, that's the sort of thing that might cheer her up."

While Cole waited in the dock to be freed, members of the victim's family reacted angrily to the decision.

One shouted: "Lock him up then", while a second pointed at Cole and said: "You haven't heard the last from me, mate."

Judge Hall replied: "I hear the calls but I ignore them.

"I have explained I'm certain in my own mind this is the best way to protect girls under 16 from the hands of this man."

The court was told that the girl's mother saw Cole with her daughter in the garden on July 31 last year.

Mr Maines said: "Cole was holding her waistband and was pushing his hands down her trousers."

Cole entered a guilty plea on January 4 after previously denying the charge.

In mitigation, defending solicitor Dee Connolly said the defendant had heart problems, was a carer for his elderly mother and had shown remorse.

Judge Hall told the court that if he had imposed a jail term, Cole would be unlikely to receive treatment available to him in the community.

He added: "In criminal terms, what you did was quite mild, but the effects were serious.

"If you are not to do this sort of thing again, then you need help.

"The greater chance of children being protected from you in the long term is a sexual offenders' prevention order.

"I want to keep you away from small children."