The 38-year-old Sandys man was also told to undergo sex offender counselling.

Last week he pleaded guilty in Magistrates' Court to sexually assaulting the girl three times between January 1996 and December 1997.

Crown counsel Charmaine Smith read the graphic details in court of how the man, a skilled labourer, fondled the victim on three separate occaisions.

The assaults took place when he lived with the victim's mother in a house across the street from the mother's parents, with whom the victim lived.

He has a conviction for rape and breaking and entering to commit rape from 1979 for which he served a total of six of ten years. The case against him was delayed for one week after the man asked if he could get a lawyer before Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner sentenced him.

Yesterday Mr. Warner told the man: "This is a very serious offence with aggravating features. There is no doubt in my mind you are a sexual predator.

"You had a substantial prison term imposed on you and not surprisingly it appears to not have had an effect in curing you,'' he added. "But there is now at Westgate a programme which facilitates treatment for these offences.

"I consider you to be a threat to the extent that you have had your chance so to speak. You continue in this vein and so in the circumstances I'm going to imprison you for four years.'' Last week Mrs. Smith told Mr. Warner the children referred to the man as "daddy'' and the family accepted him as a father figure, putting him in a position of trust. The victim ran to her mother crying after one of the incidents but did not tell her mother anything. She later confided in her godparents who told her mother.

The mother confronted her boyfriend and took him to Somerset Police Station where he admitted the offence but could provide no reason for the actions aside from saying: "I need help.'' Mr. Warner told the man last week: "We are going to deal with you fairly and give you time to get a lawyer. You are entitled to a full and fair hearing but you are not entitled to wasting the court's time.''