A paedophile who was caught after his victim told her friend about the abuse through her Nintendo DS has been jailed for three years at the Sheriff Court in Glasgow.

Arthur McFarlane, 42, preyed on the ten-year-old girl at her Drumchapel home and at a caravan park in Roseneath between January 2007 and July 2008.

At an earlier hearing, McFarlane, from Ayr, admitted using lewd, indecent and libidinous behaviour towards the girl. The court heard that he had known his victim since she was two and regularly went on holiday with the family to the caravan park in Argyll.

While at the caravan the victim was chatting with another girl in the living room through the Nintendo DS so that they could have a conversation without anyone else hearing it. She told her friend that McFarlane had been touching her, and later her friend tried to convince her to tell her mum.

She did this later that day, and the victim's mother then confronted McFarlane about it. He admitted abusing the girl and apologised to her, but the family did not go to the police, the mother saying that the daughter wanted the matter kept private.

The girl told her teacher about the abuse five months later. She later told police what had happened and McFarlane was arrested and admitted to the abuse in a police interview.

Sentencing McFarlane, Sheriff Kenneth Mitchell QC said: "I have to make sure that the public are adequately protected therefore a custodial sentence is inevitable because of the gravity of the crimes."

Sheriff Mitchell added that McFarlane will also be supervised for three years on his release from prison.

McFarlane was also placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.