A remorseless serial sex offender will be behind bars for just 10 years despite being given a 24 year custodial sentence for subjecting nine young girls to years of rape, sexual abuse and violence.

Jason King, 38, from Balfour Street in Newtownards, County Down, was told that he was every parent's worst nightmare.

Mr Justice Gillen said he considered King's case to be "probably the worst instance of multiple child abuse" that he had come across.

He was sentenced at Belfast Crown Court after being convicted on 58 counts including nine rapes and 25 indecent assaults.

However, the rapist is likely to be freed on licence in a decade, thanks to time already served and with the controversial 50% remission applicable to this case.

King was said to have groomed and preyed on the schoolgirls, aged between 12 and up to 15. Two of them became pregnant.

Though from Co Down, King, who showed no remorse, was brought up in County Kildare, but returned to Northern Ireland.

Mr Justice Gillen instructed that he sign the sex offenders' register for the rest of his life and barred him from ever working with children.

(BMcC)