A FARMHAND used illegal drugs to abuse two girls on two successive nights, York Crown Court heard.

The 13-year-olds girls had already drunk alcohol before they went to Sean Lee Garton's caravan on a Huntington farm, said Simon Kealey, prosecuting.

He handed out cannabis and "poppers" and turned a game of "truth or dare" into sexual attacks, including having sex with the younger girl.

Garton, 24, of Tang Hall Lane, York, pleaded guilty to five charges of sexual activity with children. He was jailed for three-and-a-half years and was put on the sex offenders' register for life.

Judge Stephen Ashurst told him: "You have only yourself to blame for not having the self-control to behave yourself with these two girls."

"Maybe people can understand a loss of control on one occasion, but this happened on two successive nights when you had had time to reflect for some time. You went into this with your eyes open."

Mr Kealey said the girls had been at a party before going to the caravan on a Saturday night last May. Garton gave them cannabis and offered them "poppers" containing butyl nitrate, a stimulant. One of the girls took the "popper". Both told him they were 13. He was later to tell police he believed they were 15 or 16.

The next evening they returned to the caravan where the younger girl took a "popper". While she slept, he partially stripped her and had sex with her. She later said it hurt her.

The older girl told her school friends and Garton was arrested. Police found skunk cannabis and a bottle of poppers in his caravan.

He told them he had used them in the past for his own purposes.

For Garton, Taryn Turner said: "This was behaviour out of character for this defendant and clearly was fuelled by the consumption of alcohol and the use of cannabis."

The two girls had gone willingly to the caravan on each occasion.

Normally, Garton was a hard-working man who didn't get involved in criminal activities and he had just started a job. He had a steady relationship with a 21-year-old woman who was 16 weeks pregnant. But drink was a problem for him.