Questions are being raised in Ticino about how a convicted paedophile, sentenced on Thursday to five years in jail for re-offending with new sex crimes against small girls, managed to get hired as the driver of a bus carrying young children.

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The 51-year-old man admitted in the Lugano assizes court to a range of sexual offences against several girls aged five to 10, including one who was handicapped, the ATS news agency reported.

The victims were girls who travelled in the bus driven by the sexual predator.

The crimes, dating from 2011, ranged from exhibitionism — masturbating in front of the children — to fondling the girls and forcing them to touch him, according to court evidence.
    
Parents became concerned when the bus was repeatedly late and the offences subsequently came to light.

The convicted man was in detention for a year prior to the court case.

He already spent several weeks in jail in 2005 for similar acts and underwent therapy for two years, ATS said.

The man told the court that he stopped the treatment because it was too expensive and was not covered by his health insurance.    

The presiding judge and a lawyer acting on behalf of the affected families said it was unimaginable that the man could have been hired as a the driver of a bus carrying small children, ATS said.

The defence sought to reduce the penalty to two and half years in jail.

The convicted man’s lawyer said the bus driver promised to follow a therapeutic treatment.

But the judge did not deem this sufficient to lessen the sentence, ATS reported.